Superintendents: Without flexibility, schools face massive layoffs

School Superintendents on Thursday told lawmakers that budget cuts totaling more than $170 million would dramatically change Nevada's 17 public school districts.

Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulffes said 80-90 percent of school district budgets are personnel costs.

To make significant cuts, he told the Interim Finance Committee, "we're going to have to go where the dollars are."

He, Washoe Superinten-dent Heath Morrison and Lyon Superintendent Caroline McIntosh said there aren't many options to save any real money.

Rulffes said those include changing the law to allow a shorter school year than the current 180 days, larger classes or teacher pay cuts. Since salaries are set in collective bargaining, teachers would have to agree to change those contracts.

The impact of larger classes, Rulffes said, is significant. Adding one student to each class in Clark County would save $26.5 million a year by eliminating some 400 teachers.

"Increasing class size means costing jobs," he said.

Morrison said that to increase class sizes in grades 1-3 would require lawmakers give them that power, since the class size reduction program caps class size at 19 students in those grades.

All three acknowledged the state has no choice but to cut budgets because the revenues just aren't coming in. The total shortfall at this point is estimated at $881 million.

But they urged lawmakers to give them as much flexibility as possible to handle those cuts.

Without flexibility, McIntosh said, "we're forced to choose massive layoffs."

Rulffes said a combination of a temporarily shortened school year, larger classes and other changes will probably be necessary to meet the expected reductions.

Gov. Jim Gibbons attended the meeting for a while, watching from the audience. He said afterward the call for flexibility matches what those superintendents have been telling him and the Education Department.