The Legislature’s top state Senate Democrat plans to introduce a massive, $500 million education bill in February's upcoming legislative session that would establish universal prekindergarten and continued funding for teacher raises.

The sweeping proposal announced Wednesday by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) would also give appointed Clark County school board trustees voting rights, add more reporting requirements for the state’s private school quasi-voucher scholarship program and mandate minimum qualifications for superintendents and chief financial officers. 

In an interview with The Nevada Independent, Cannizzaro said the measure is focused on increasing the accountability and efficiency of Nevada’s education system, particularly after recent budget and personnel issues at the Clark County School District.

“As state lawmakers, it is our job to make sure that we not only set very clear standards and have mechanisms in place to work with the districts that might be falling short,” Cannizzaro said. “But we also have the duty to fund education and to make sure that we're delivering for the community, for parents, for students across the state.”

Though the proposed legislation will likely have a more than $500 million price tag, Cannizzaro said it should save the state money in the future and lead to better academic outcomes in a state that has consistently ranked among the worst in the nation. She also cautioned that the bill must still be formally drafted, and the financial projections might change. 

The proposal comes about a month before Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, is expected to outline his budget and goals for the 2025 legislative session in his State of the State address on Jan. 15.

Lombardo, who has sought to define himself as the “education governor,” made education a core focus of his gubernatorial campaign and a priority in the 2023 legislative session, where he and lawmakers approved a budget that massively boosted education spending. He is likely to focus on education again in the next legislative session.

By serving up a comprehensive education plan ahead of the January address, the majority leader articulated Democrats’ goals in the education realm and set up an early contrast ahead of the upcoming legislative session, where Democrats have majorities in each legislative chamber but not enough seats to override a gubernatorial veto.

Cannizzaro said she hadn’t spoken with Lombardo yet about her proposal but noted that the legislation takes a “common sense approach.”

Universal Pre-K

Cannizzaro said a universal prekindergarten program is one of the best evidenced-based ways to improve educational outcomes, academic achievement, graduation rates and help working families. As of May 2024, six states and the District of Columbia have universal pre-K access for 4-year-olds, with Nevada’s fellow Western states of California and New Mexico also recently adopting universal pre-K laws.

Nevada has some of the lowest prekindergarten enrollment rates in the country. As of 2023, only 7 percent of 4-year-olds in Nevada are enrolled in state-funded pre-K. Currently, state-sponsored pre-K enrollment in Nevada is limited to families with an income less than 200 percent of the poverty level. In 2023, the Legislature allocated $22 million for the program. 

“If we can start to expand that where every four-year-old … can get into a pre-K program, we're going to see that benefit for years to come,” Cannizzaro said.

Educator raises and initiatives

The proposed legislation would keep educator raises funded in part by SB231, continuing the $250 million matching fund for educators’ raises for another two years. 

School districts were wary of committing to permanent pay raises without statutory assurance that those funds will continue beyond the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2025. Some districts opted to separate pay increases tied to SB231 from raises paid with their general fund and treated them like bonuses with sunset clauses —  indicating the extra pay would end if funding wasn’t extended. 

During a Monday legislative subcommittee meeting, Elko County School District Superintendent Clayton Anderson suggested lawmakers make the funds available without requiring a match from school districts. 

Anderson said his district is still reeling from the loss of local mining tax revenue that previously went directly to the district but was swept up and redistributed to all districts as part of the new Pupil Centered Funding Plan. As a result, the district of less than 10,000 students wasn’t able to give as large of raises as Clark and Washoe did.

“We were happy to provide those raises. However, it would have been great to have that all-star budget,” Anderson said.  

Cannizzaro said that funds for educator raises are no different than any other funding that needs lawmakers’ renewal every two years. 

“We want to see the continuation of that money for teachers who are currently receiving that, so that they don't have to incur a pay cut,” she said. “So yes, some of that will have to be borne by the districts, just like it always is.”

Educators at charter schools, which are public schools, were left out of SB231 and are absent from this new proposal. Cannizzaro said charter schools don’t have the same staff recruiting challenges that districts face, and dedicated funding for charter school raises is a separate conversation.

Education accountability

Many of the legislation's proposed accountability measures directly respond to recent issues at the Clark County School District.

Lawmakers in 2023 passed a bill (AB175) that added four nonvoting, appointed trustee positions to the seven-member Clark County School Board, which lawmakers argued would add professionalism to the board known for infighting and dysfunction. 

Cannizzaro’s bill would give those appointed trustees voting rights. She said this would add stability to the school board that’s faced turnover after two trustees resigned before the end of their terms, including one who moved out of the state while in office.

“From my perspective, frankly, the appointed members of the board of trustees … added some much-needed expertise,” Cannizzaro said. 

The legislation would also establish minimum professional qualifications for school districts when hiring a superintendent and chief financial officers. Nevada superintendents are hired by their district’s school board, which sets the qualifications for those candidates. Requirements typically include a master's degree or higher and a Nevada school administrator license. Districts’ chief financial officers are hired by district leadership. 

A job description of the chief financial officer position on CCSD’s website states candidates must have at least 10 years of experience in finance and operations for a school district or a similar entity, and have experience working in education and/or municipal sectors. 

Cannizzaro did not specify what qualifications she’d like to see outlined in state statute, explaining that the bill language is still being drafted. But she said there are no parameters in state law for either position and setting a standard is essential. 

Following the emergence of CCSD’s budget issues, last month Lombardo and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert appointed a compliance officer to work with the district to develop and implement a corrective action plan. 

Cannizzaro wants to go a step further and said her bill would create a new accountability tool for the legislative and executive branches, the School District Oversight Board, which would be allowed to take remedial actions against districts that fail to meet legal obligations, especially in issues that don’t meet the threshold needed to place a district under receivership or fiscal watch. 

“The Legislature has to be involved in that oversight,” Cannizzaro said. “We're not going to give unchecked authority to the Nevada Department of Education or any other entity.” 

Opportunity scholarships

The bill also envisions more reporting around the Nevada Educational Choice Scholarship Program, or Opportunity Scholarships, which uses a limited pool of corporate funding exchanged for tax credits to provide annual scholarships for private school tuition for students under certain income thresholds.

Cannizzaro said her proposed measure doesn’t contemplate eliminating or changing the $6.6 million program but adds some transparency requirements. 

The program caused controversy after the end of the 2023 session after lawmakers learned that $4.7 million additional one-time funds were set to expire and that one single scholarship granting organization had claimed all the tax credits available for that year. 

Cannizzarro said lawmakers were left with questions about who exactly benefited from the Opportunity Scholarships, what schools they attended and how long their enrollment was.

Under the measure, Cannizzaro proposes collecting data on scholarship recipients’ demographics and enrollment and requiring that the private schools they attend are subject to the same math, science, and English language assessment requirements as public schools. 

“At the end of the day, we have public dollars being sent to private schools. And I think that with those public dollars should come accountability,” she said.