LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — The Clark County School District’s budget was facing deep cuts before the governor stepped in with emergency funding. That funding will not solve everything, and parents were invited Tuesday night to hear where the money is going.
Gov. Joe Lombardo approved an emergency regulation last week granting temporary funding relief to school districts, averting threatened mid-year teacher layoffs and program cuts in CCSD. The order allows districts to receive state funding based on projected enrollment rather than lower actual student counts, and CCSD says all staff will remain in their positions for the rest of the school year. CCSD is also pushing its own permanent fix for 2027 that would base funding on the previous year’s headcount or a three-year average, whichever is higher.
The Nevada PTA and Educate Nevada Now said the state’s education funding has not kept pace even as the state earned more in revenue from marijuana sales and room taxes.
They say this stems from a formula dating back to 1967, known as the Nevada Plan. Under that model, presenters said, whenever a new revenue source came in, such as the room tax or marijuana tax, the state reduced its own general fund contribution to education by a similar amount, resulting in little or no net increase in per-pupil funding.
New formula meant to promote growth
The state moved to a new formula, the Pupil-Centered Funding Plan, passed in 2019 to replace the 1967 Nevada Plan. Presenters said the new model is more transparent, ties school funding to state revenue growth rather than prior-year spending, and adds weighted funding for English learners, at-risk students and gifted and talented students.
Under the new formula, the state’s general fund contribution is intended to rise in proportion with economic growth, rather than shrinking as other revenue sources increase, according to presenters. They said that intent is not a strict requirement under the law, and lawmakers can choose not to follow it, as they said occurred during the 2025 legislative session, when base per-pupil funding was increased by about $2 rather than following the formula’s growth model.
Presenters said Nevada’s per-pupil funding, including weighted funds, totaled $13,889 for the 2025-26 school year. They said base per-pupil funding alone is closer to $9,800, and both figures remain below the national average.
“There is no reason in a state where we are $3,500 per pupil below the national average that we should be reducing funds in light of declining enrollment. Full stop, our education budget should not go down,” said Amanda Morgan, legal director for Educate Nevada Now.
Enrollment decline strains the formula
Presenters said enrollment decline, driven largely by falling birth rates, has reduced the number of students eligible for per-pupil funding, even as some lawmakers sought to keep district funding levels flat. Because state law distributes funds based on actual enrollment, unspent dollars intended for students who did not materialize were instead directed to the state’s education stabilization account, according to presenters.
The Commission on School Funding has recommended increasing education investment by at least $250 million annually over 10 years, and presenters said the state needs about $2.6 billion more per year to reach the national per-pupil average.
MORE ON FOX5: Parents, teachers voice outrage over $51M Clark County School District budget cuts
Weighted funding and other concerns
Presenters also raised concerns about how Nevada calculates “at-risk” student funding, saying the state uses a model unique in the country that determines eligibility based on the bottom 20th percentile of students by likelihood to graduate, rather than income-based measures used in most other states. They said an estimated 40,000 economically disadvantaged students do not currently receive at-risk funding under the model.
Presenters said Nevada does not allow funding weights to “stack,” meaning a student who qualifies for multiple categories, such as special education and English learner status, only receives the highest single weight rather than combined funding. They said the Commission on School Funding is reviewing potential changes, including a rolling average for at-risk designations and removing a 13% cap on the share of students a district can classify for special education funding.
The latest plan aims to make education funding more transparent and fair for all kinds of students across Nevada. But advocates say without steady increases, the state is still thousands of dollars per student below what experts consider “adequate.”
FOX5 Las Vegas reached out to CCSD for a response to this meeting.
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