Legislator voices frustration

CARSON CITY — Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, questioned why the state can find money for prison inmates when it does not have funds to expand the full-day kindergarten program to all eligible children.

She told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee that the state spends about $20,000 a year to incarcerate each prisoner and has been asked by the governor to support $300 million in new prison construction.

In contrast, she said, to offer each kindergartner a full day of class would cost $2,400 per student.

That money has not been included in Gov. Jim Gibbons’ proposed $6.8 billion general fund state budget.

She said Gibbons has proposed spending just $13 million on new programs for public schools.

“What does that say about our priorities?” she asked. “That is not putting education first.”

Buckley contended some inmates might not have ended up in prison if they had received a better start to education with full-day kindergarten.

Her comment sparked a response from Joe Enge, a member of the Carson City School Board and an education analyst for the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

“I am not aware of one study that shows investing in all-day kindergarten will make any impact on the incarceration rate,” Enge said.

He said the Nevada education system’s problems occur at the secondary level, not in early grades.

Buckley called on the committee to make a financial commitment to education but acknowledged the state does not have extra revenue.

“I don’t know how much money we will have. We know the situation is bleak.”

The state Economic Forum on Tuesday issued a report on state revenue that requires that the government cut at least $74 million from the governor’s proposed budget.

The committee took no vote on Assembly Bill 157, Buckley’s bill that calls for spending $73 million to start full-day kindergarten in all 340 elementary schools in Nevada in the 2008-09 school year.

Full-day kindergarten now is offered in 114 “at-risk” schools, those where more than 55 percent of students qualify for free or reduced cost lunches.

A decision on the bill probably will not come before legislative leaders and Gibbons can agree on a compromise that involves Buckley’s bill and the governor’s proposal to establish 100 empowerment schools.

Democrats oppose Gibbons’ bill because it proposes funding the empowerment schools by taking $60 million going to a retirement program for teachers.

In an interview earlier Thursday, Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Bonnie Parnell, D-Carson City, predicted that both sides will give a little and agree to a partial expansion of full-day kindergarten and add some empowerment schools.

Assembly Minority Leader Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, and Senate Human Resources Committee Chairman Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, expressed similar comments.

Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulffes said 11,000 of the 23,000 kindergarten students in his district already attend full-day classes.

“Some people believe it is a waste of time after the third or fourth grade,” he added. “I think that is nonsense.”