Cyndi Loza

Larger classes and cuts to programs and staff are some of the actions school districts could take if the cost-of-living raises for teachers and other state workers were suspended, Nevada school superintendents said Tuesday.

With a special session of the Legislature scheduled to begin next week, Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, and Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, are proposing to defer the raises to save an estimated $130 million in the 2008-09 budget.

“If the choice is between a salary increase and laying off people, I certainly want to come down on saving people’s jobs,” Raggio said.

State lawmakers must find an estimated $60 million to $100 million to erase the 2008-09 budget shortfall caused by sharp declines in sales and gaming taxes. Gov. Jim Gibbons and lawmakers already have identified cuts totaling about $914 million. A similar shortfall looms for the 2009-10 budget.

Deferral of the cost-of-living adjustment would cost the Washoe County School District about $13 million and could lead to larger classes, a lack of textbooks and force parents to pay the cost of extracurricular activities such as athletics or band, Superintendent Paul Dugan said.

Dugan said the raises are in teacher contracts. If the state doesn’t fund them, the district would have to make up the difference.

“Everyone wants to do everything possible to avoid people losing their jobs,” Dugan said. “But I think the reality is that you can only cut so much until the loss of jobs becomes a real possibility.”

For the Douglas County School District, suspending the raises could lead to cuts in programs and staff, superintendent Carol Lark said.

“There’ll be no other choice,” Lark said. “It’s going to set education back 10, 20 years because once you cut that, you have to rebuild that base, and it’s already extremely low.”

In December, Gibbons ordered a 4.5 percent statewide cut that reduced funding to school districts by $95 million over the next two years. In May, he asked agencies and school districts to present “what-if” budgets with 14 percent cuts to operating costs.

It’s time to look at other revenue options, such as a state lottery, Dugan said.

“If we want to have a state that can still attract and keep people here, we can’t continue to say the answer is to keep cutting,” Dugan said.

Pershing County Superintendent Dan Fox said suspending road construction would be a better option than cutting additional money from K-12 education.

“People will see when a pothole in the road is repaired, but they don’t see the depths of cuts school districts have to make with inadequate funding,” Fox said.

With all the budget slashing, the only option school districts such as Pershing have are to “put up a ‘closed’ sign and say ‘moved, no forwarding address,’” Fox joked.

“When you’re not funded adequately to begin with and then you take more (money) away, and then come back and take even more away than what you took before, it gets really difficult,” Fox said. “Any flexibility is gone, and we’re just providing minimum, bare essentials to students and that is not fair to them.”