Published Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 | 11:42 a.m.
Updated Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 | 4:57 p.m.
State pressure is building on the Clark County School District to answer for its apparent budget struggles.
Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office released a letter today that he sent to state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas, requesting an ongoing state performance audit of CCSD to include recently identified potential budget shortfalls “so that we can identify ways to address these issues in the long-term.” He also released a note he sent to the Nevada Department of Taxation today asking them to include the CCSD budget matter in an upcoming committee meeting.
Lombardo’s letters follow Nevada Superintendent Jhone Ebert sharing a letter Thursday that she sent to CCSD Interim Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell about a “potential” budget deficit the district has admitted internally but not publicly confirmed or explained in detail.
Lombardo wants to know the processes CCSD uses to allocate funding to individual schools, what happened with that process to cause the current issues, how CCSD can avoid similar circumstances in the future, and what, if anything, the legislative and executive branch can consider to prevent another similar situation.
“We are concerned with reports that CCSD’s current budget issues will potentially result in the release or elimination of teachers and other staff positions,” he told Cannizzaro. “Given last session’s unprecedented increase in funding for education, such a scenario would be unacceptable.”
In his letter to Shellie Hughes, the executive director of the Department of Taxation, the governor requested that the department add a discussion on CCSD to the next meeting of its Committee on Local Government Finance. The committee meets on Oct. 23.
In her letter to Larsen-Mitchell, Ebert asked her to confirm if CCSD has a budget shortfall and if so, how large it is.
Ebert asked CCSD if its budgetary reports to the Nevada departments of education and taxation, or its own budgetary assumptions and allocations, were inaccurate. Pointedly, she asked if a budgetary shortfall currently exists at CCSD and if so, by about how much.
If there are inaccuracies or holes, Ebert asked Larsen-Mitchell what caused the errors, when amended reports will be issued and what CCSD’s plan is to address the shortfall, including whether the district will ask schools to use their carry-forward funds to make up the deficit. (Carry-forward funds are the funds that weren’t used in one fiscal year and were carried into the following year.)
Ebert said she wanted “the most accurate answers you can (provide) as soon as you are able,” but no later than Oct. 3.
CCSD said in a statement today that it will cooperate with the state inquiries.
“The Clark County School District welcomes the opportunity to expand the scope of the legislative audit focusing on the district’s finances, respond to the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s questions, and address any other inquiries we may receive,” the district stated.
CCSD released a letter on Sept. 20 from Larsen-Mitchell to all staff titled “school strategic budget challenges” in which she said a “potential central budget deficit was identified during the district’s regularly scheduled accounting year-end close-out process… Although progress has been made, we are still unable to confirm whether a central budget deficit exists.” She said the central office will try to absorb “any confirmed deficit.”
Larsen-Mitchell’s staff memo was accompanied by several emails and memos from the budget and finance office to principals, who build their school’s budgets using information from the central office.
These memos to principals, sent throughout September, said a potential deficit was found.
CCSD released a statement later in the day saying the potential deficit could be attributed to unanticipated expenses, such as litigation and cybersecurity expenses, and that that possible deficit didn’t impact schools’ fall budgets.
However, today’s statement did reference other current issues impacting the fall budgets: enrollment loss, salary increases and a correction to earlier budget estimates of allocations for “at-risk” student funding. It was unclear what data was used to calculate at-risk student funding, and what was wrong with it.
The statement did not reference the letters from Lombardo or Ebert.
“If a central budget deficit is confirmed as the budget cycle concludes, we will keep our employees, families, and community informed and make every effort to not impact school budgets,” the district said. “We are also fully analyzing school allocation procedures to ensure we are able to improve estimates and accuracy, and we will share our progress along the way.”
The Sun has asked CCSD several times for further clarification.