School Superintendent Rob Roberts Advertisement

The foremost question concerning schools in the minds of parents these days is what's happening with next school year's budget.

Specifically, will any K-12 schools be closed? Will there be more students in classes because teachers will be laid off? Will more programs be cut?

Those are the same questions in the minds of school employees and administrators, Nye County School District trustees and Superintendent Rob Roberts.

Not all have definitive answers, but it is certain that no school in Pahrump is being closed for the 2009-10 school year.

If the proposed state budget is passed by the Legislature, some school employees -- including teachers -- will have to be cut. Depending on enrollment figures, fewer teachers could lead to higher student-teacher ratios.

School administrators and officials have been working with the budget numbers handed down by Gov. Jim Gibbons since his Jan. 15 State of the State speech, the upshot of which left schools in Nevada underfunded by $62 million. The proposed budget includes cutting all state workers' pay by 6 percent, and that includes teachers.

April 30, however, the state's revenue projections fell $900 million short of what is needed to fund Gibbons' proposed $6.2 billion budget. On Wednesday the shortfall was reduced to $400 million.

While that's a half-billion-dollar step in the right direction in just one week, it's still bad news. After months of number crunching, next year's school budget continues to be a moving target.

Roberts said, "It looks bleak for the school district."

Gibbons is counting on "an injection of funds from the economic stimulus package." He is also proposing "the securitization of the annual payments Nevada receives as part of the tobacco settlement" to raise about $340 million.

"All programs funded by tobacco settlement money will continue to be funded for the next two years by proceeds from this sale. This includes the Millennium Scholarship program and senior Rx prescription program," promised Gibbons.

Gibbons is determined not to raise taxes to balance the state's budget, but he faces strong opposition from unions for state workers, including the Nevada State Education Association, which represents more than 28,000 educational employees.

"It is a difficult economic time for everyone," he said Wednesday. "It is the wrong time to ask our citizens who have less to pay more. I am showing the legislature how to balance our state's budget without raising taxes."