Education Initiative failure shows lack of faith in system
Within hours of Tuesday night’s election results, Clark County school officials were laying the groundwork for a $3.9 billion bond question in the 2016 election, driven by the need for dozens of new schools and upgrades to existing campuses.
But voters made something clear about education funding Tuesday, according to Seth Rau, policy director for Nevada Succeeds, a bipartisan nonprofit organization advocating for improvements to Silver State schools.
It wasn’t just a bare majority of Nevada voters that said “no” to the Education Initiative – a 2 percent margins tax on all Nevada businesses with at least $1 million in annual revenue that would have provided an estimated $800 million a year to public schools. A resounding 79 percent of voters rejected the tax measure.
Education Initiative opponents who poured millions of dollars into seeing the ballot question fail didn’t expect such a landslide defeat, Rau said.
Neither did pollsters, whose work showed the proposed margins tax to be everything from a voter favorite to a statistical toss-up.
“A loss by that margin shows that voters don’t want to fund our education system,” Rau said.
Nevadans have stood behind specific initiatives, such as funding for more full-day kindergarten classrooms, Rau added, but they won’t hand over large checks for broad initiatives and let education officials decide how it’s spent. “It’s a direct reflection of voters’ confidence in officials.”
Veteran Clark County School Board member Carolyn Edwards, elected to her third term Tuesday, contends that a connection shouldn’t be made between the now-defunct Education Initiative and the prospects for a ballot question to raise property taxes for Clark County school construction. Both ballot questions might be meant to fund education but not in the same way or with the same promises.
While a bond puts money directly into the district to build new schools and improve existing ones, there was no guarantee that the initiative’s $800 million in revenue would increase per-student funding at district schools. The Legislature could have decreased state education funding by that same amount and reallocated that money elsewhere.
QUESTION 3 OPPOSITION
The Education Initiative — sponsored by the Nevada State Education Association, which represents the state’s teachers and education support professionals — also singled out businesses, whether profitable or not.
“There was a concerted, targeted effort to make that fail,” Edwards said.
While the political action committee in support of the Education Initiative raised $1.6 million in 2014, a trio of opposing PACs raised $7.4 million, according to expense reports released last week by the Nevada secretary of state. The state teachers association and its Clark County affiliate were the only major contributors to The Education Initiative PAC.
The three opposing PACs, however, drew a list of supporters that reads like a who’s who in Nevada business, including MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment Corp. Each contributed $100,000 in the month before the general election. Las Vegas Sands Corp. put in $250,000. The Nevada Association of Realtors invested $950,000.
The measure also failed to garner broad-based support from education officials.
A bond sought directly by the district, however, would win many supporters if student enrollment continues to increase, Edwards said. The district has grown by more than 10,000 students since 2012 without adding a school, which is largely why elementary schools on average are about 20 percent above their student capacities.
“The need will clearly be evident,” Edwards said. “I think we’ll have help, too. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.”
District officials also estimate that existing campuses will need $6.5 billion in building and technology upgrades in the coming decade, an expense the district lacks the resources to fund, according to a report from district Chief Financial Officer Jim McIntosh to the School Board made early Wednesday morning. And that doesn’t count the $900 million cost of building 32 schools that will be needed in the next decade, assuming elementary school growth of 1 percent or more annually.
Clark County School District lobbyist Joyce Haldeman said she’s not ready to comment on the implications of the Education Initiative’s failure for a future district bond, but the ballot question wasn’t well thought out.
In her experience, voters will pass a ballot question if it’s well thought out, Haldeman said, adding: “That’s a huge challenge.”
She also said that “finding essential revenues in a ballot question is a risky business” when approaching voters about capital needs and new school construction, which are large, one-time expenses.
But education building needs have long been funded that way in Nevada. The state Legislature funds school operations but doesn’t pay for capital projects. Districts are left to their own devices to identify those resources.
And the funds might not materialize, as the district discovered in 2012. Its ballot question for a property tax increase would have produced $669 million over six years for school renovations and replacements, but voters turned it down 2-1.
“And I thought that was a resounding ‘no’ vote,” said Edwards of the 2012 bond, which fared far better with voters than the Education Initiative.
LOOKING TO THE LEGISLATURE
Even in its overwhelming defeat, the Education Initiative serves a valuable purpose, said the Nevada teachers union in a statement released after Question 3 was trounced. Everyone’s attention —including lawmakers — is on the way to “find funding solutions in the upcoming legislative session.” The union wouldn’t give an interview when asked by the Review-Journal last week.
“Now, the ball’s in the Legislature’s lap to address education funding,” Edwards said. “Hopefully, they do something this time as opposed to doing nothing.”
Edwards’ pronouncement comes as the district faces teacher recruitment shortfalls on top of its problem of how to pay for building improvements. In October, the district was short more than 600 teachers. The district reported many applicants turned down job offers in Clark County to take positions in districts such as Salt Lake City, which offers 9 percent more than Clark County, and Houston, where new teachers earn 42 percent more than district teachers.
The starting teacher salary in Clark County for those with bachelor’s degrees is less than $35,000.
The Legislature is where education funding should be addressed and debated, Haldeman said.
“When it becomes a campaign, the talk becomes rhetoric, not a thoughtful discussion,” she said.
Some legislators indicated to Edwards that they would entertain a way of providing capital funding through the state, eliminating the need for repeatedly going back to voters for bonds. Last week’s election could hurt chances for that. Those legislators weren’t re-elected, Edwards said. Half the Assembly will be new.
“It’s an opportunity for havoc,” Edwards said. “Could be good. Could be terrible.”
Contact Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @TrevonMilliard.
