Critics oppose diverting hotel room tax money

CARSON CITY — Education officials begged state lawmakers Wednesday to block Gov. Brian Sandoval’s plan to divert hotel room tax money away from Nevada schools and into the cash-short state general fund.

"It’s not the will of the voters," Nevada Association of School Boards chief Dotty Merrill told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee considering Assembly Bill 488.

Panel members took no action on the measure that would divert a portion of Clark and Washoe county room taxes earmarked for public schools to the state general fund until July 1, 2013. But they got an earful from education advocates questioning politicians’ promises to improve schools in a state with one of the lowest graduation rates in the nation.

"If the Legislature continues to take money from education and send it elsewhere, I question whether the Legislature supports education," said Ron Dreher, lobbyist for the Washoe School Principals Association.

In 2008, voters in Clark and Washoe counties, the state’s population centers, supported an advisory ballot question raising room taxes up to 3 percent as a way to increase education funding.

The Legislature in 2009 approved the voter initiative but tapped that revenue for two years. Sandoval wants to continue the diversion to add $221 million to the cash-strapped general fund.

Sandoval staffers say the vote was a nonbinding advisory question and that the Legislature ultimately authorized the tax increase. Under the governor’s bill, the room tax revenue stream would return to schools in two years.

The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada called the diversion a tax in disguise, and school district representatives called repurposing money meant for schools part of a "troubling trend."

They noted that a separate proposal would redirect millions of dollars in construction bond debt service reserve funds to school operating expenses.

Some legislators and education advocates say those budget shifts breach trust with constituents who approved the original plans.

"Instead of meeting that guarantee, it becomes a guaranteed cut," said Clark County School District representative Joyce Haldeman.

Legislators also considered the governor’s plan to remove minimum spending levels for textbooks, programs for gifted students, computers and other items let school districts decide what to cut to meet a 5 percent budget reduction.

Haldeman said textbook expenditures may be cut 50 percent to try to save teacher jobs. Officials say the Washoe County School District plans to reduce textbook spending by $2 million.

Ways and Means Committee Chairwoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, noted that textbook funds get cut in session after session.

"At what point do I get worried?" she asked. "At what point are we going to get so far behind that it’s hard to catch up?"