Everyone in the filled-to-capacity Pahrump Nye County School District office Wednesday night anxiously waited to hear what school jobs would be reinstated, using the additional $2.07 million allocated to the district by the state Legislature last week.

A plan consolidating ideas from the district budget committee, school employees and public input was presented to the trustees, with a recommended recovery list adding school positions previously cut. Thirty jobs were removed from the chopping block.

Pahrump's elementary schools took the brunt of the original cuts with 43 teachers eliminated, increasing class sizes to a ratio of 25 students to one teacher in grades K-3 and increasing classes to 30 students for one teacher in grades 4-5.

Four counselors and five specialties teachers were also eliminated from elementary schools.

The trustees voted to reinstate 15 teachers and three specialties teaching positions to elementary schools. The change reduces the student-teacher ratio to 22 students to one teacher in K-3 and 25 students to one teacher in grades 4-5. This ratio is still an increase over current elementary school classes, some of which have only a dozen students.

After impassioned discussion on the importance of counselors to the operation of schools throughout the district, all four counselors were reinstated. There are now five counselors in Pahrump elementary schools, one in Amargosa Valley and one for the northern areas of the district included in the budget.

The addition of those elementary school positions takes $1,527,192 of the available $2,071,436 (including the cost of benefits).

Middle schools originally lost nine teachers, three exploratory teachers and two vice principals at Rosemary Clarke Middle School. A vice principal and five teaching positions were reinstated, totaling $423,404.

There was debate over reinstating one technician to the small school technology department.

Trustee Tracie Ward argued the district could be out of compliance with state and federal regulations if the hundreds of computers throughout the school system were not up and running. But in the end, the $60,762 proposed for the technician went toward reinstating a counselor position.

In the district office, $9,400 was recovered for an assistant superintendent. That amount is due to District Policy 6224, dealing with an administrator transferring to another position.

District wide, the recovered positions total $2,043,571, leaving $27,865 remaining of the new proposed funding.

Roberts said previously the school district's budget process was purposely made as transparent and open to the public as possible, with teachers and others encouraged to attend budget workshops when possible.

"There is nothing mysterious about the process," he said. "We were given a certain amount of money to fund the school year and we have to submit a budget reflecting those numbers."