Nevada State Representative Bert Gurr has made plans to improve rural school conditions once the Nevada Legislature reconvenes in February 2025.
This comes after Gurr visited the David E. Norman Elementary and White Pine Middle schools, which are more than 100 years old. The schools lack fencing, and guarded doors, do not meet ADA requirements and have failing heating/cooling systems.
Nevada currently does not fund the construction and maintenance of public school facilities. Funding comes from all-in-one funds allocated by the State to the individual districts on a per-pupil basis. Most of the funds come from property taxes.
School districts can seek voter approval to sell bonds to fund more school projects however rural communities struggle with bonds due to sparse populations and smaller economies. Even with bonds, rural schools may be unable to provide adequate conditions for students.
Last year, a bill was passed to rebuild a school on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. Elko County School District was the recipient of $64.5M for reconstruction efforts.
Officials are looking for more sustainable methods to provide schools with the necessary funds to repair, maintain and improve school facilities. Former Senator Pete Goicoechea proposed two separate bills to improve conditions of schools in rural areas, neither of which passed.
A report by the Nevada Commission on School Funding stated the Legislature occasionally passed bills to let districts pursue bonding/tax overrides. This is mostly the case in larger districts with strong economies.
The report suggested several solutions including:
- Allowing voters to approve exceeding the tax cap;
- Allowing districts to pledge other types of taxes as security for bonds;
- Tapping into other local funding to fund-match for loans from the state infrastructure bank;
- Bringing back a state program for emergency repair grants, and
- Giving districts access to State bonds.
White Pine County School District currently receives $0.25 of its $3.66 tax rate/$100 of a property’s assessed value. The district must wait until 2034 before it is able to ask for $15M. The district is still paying off a high school it received funds for in 1994.
The more time that passes without building a school, the more expensive construction becomes. Recent estimates indicate a K-8 campus would cost approximately $98.5M. A 2022 comprehensive facility assessment indicated it would cost $32.6M to bring 23 schools to “good” condition. Upgrading the schools to the “like new” condition would cost around $148.7M.
Heating and cooling upgrades are the priority for the four schools at the top of the district’s capital improvement plan, which ranks higher than replacing the roofs of five schools and a district office. (Source)
