Gov. Joe Lombardo and the Nevada Department of Education (NDE) have appointed a compliance monitor who will oversee the Clark County School District (CCSD) at district expense, and are requiring district officials to submit a corrective plan of action after CCSD was found noncompliant with two state laws following budget issues discovered two months ago, Lombardo announced Monday.
The issues included a potential district-level budget shortfall of about $11 million because of unexpected expenses, shortfalls in schools’ own budgets because of errors that led to them receiving less funding than they needed to cover significant new teacher salary raises, and inaccuracies in allocations of additional funding designated for students considered to be “at risk.” School officials didn’t find out about the issues until September, well after they had already made hiring and other budgeting decisions.
District officials have proposed plugging the hole in the district-level budget with some of the district’s more than $150 million in unassigned funds, which they said would leave their new unassigned ending fund balance above 4 percent of its general fund revenue, more than its 2 percent target.
The situation prompted Lombardo, a Republican, to call for state audits into CCSD’s budget and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert to send more than two dozen questions to the district officials to learn more about how the shortfall occurred.
“After reviewing CCSD’s responses, NDE remains concerned about the district’s leadership, policies, and processes that prevented CCSD’s local school precincts from receiving timely and accurate funding information prior to the start of the 2024-25 school year,” Ebert said in a Monday statement.
Ebert said in a letter to CCSD’s interim Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell and Board President Evelyn Garcia Morales that the district’s failure to provide schools with correct information interfered with their rights and ability to control their plans of operations.
It also hindered NDE’s ability to effectively carry out its statutory oversight of state funding for public education and undermined the legislative intent of ensuring transparency and accountability in public school funding.
CCSD officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ebert and Lombardo have ordered Larsen-Mitchell and the school board to develop and implement a corrective action plan by Jan. 9, which will need to be submitted to Ebert for approval by Dec. 27.
They also appointed Yolanda King of King Strategies LLC to serve as the district’s compliance monitor. The district is required to pay King at a rate of $160 per hour in a contract not exceeding $60,000, and reimburse her company for “any reasonable and necessary expenses incurred” while performing its duties. The district has until Dec. 12 to execute a formal contract with King Strategies.
King, a former county manager for Clark County, will provide oversight, support and assistance to the district as it develops and implements its action plan, and must be given access to any meetings related to district operations, including high level leadership meetings.
In addition to these actions, a Nevada Department of Taxation subcommittee is working to decide whether to recommend placing the district under fiscal watch — a heightened state of government monitoring.
Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) have scheduled a Dec. 16 legislative subcommittee hearing on the budget shortfall in response to Lombardo’s calls for state audits.
