Nevada Looks at 6.9% Cut to Education Spending

In an interesting compromise that could see the state of Nevada reduce its spending on education by 6.9%, lawmakers continue to try to make progress in addressing a nearly $900m state budget deficit.

"On education, Gibbons had proposed a 10 percent cut in state spending on kindergarten through 12th grade and higher education for a potential savings of $250 million. Democrats were pushing for a 5 percent reduction."

Of course, the usual critics of decreased state spending will emerge with their typical alarmist hand-wringing about "the children".

It's laughable to think that educational results in the state of Nevada will be negatively affected with such a small reduction in spending. The Nevada Policy Research Institute already addressed that issue last year in an interesting report.

There is simply no correlation to spending money and results. If anything, they are most likely inversely related (i.e., if one goes up, the other goes down, etc.).

What would improve educational results is increased parental involvement in the lives of their kids - nothing more, nothing less.

Having the government tax and spend more and more of the hard-earned money of Nevada workers is not the solution to poor educational results. So the proposal here to reduce spending should be applauded.

The only remaining question is to ask why the state should stop at 6.9%?

Nevada lawmakers lament "no win" budget situation

The Las Vegas Sun reports that state lawmakers are complaining about a "no-win" budget situation, in which tax hikes will have to balanced with targeted budget cuts.

The state of Nevada has a potential $1b budget deficit for 2010.

Nevada has a 13.1% unemployment rate.

This debate shouldn't be that difficult. Clearly the state needs to slash spending on non-critical functions, in particular by getting state employee contracts negotiated by their respective unions back in-line with economic reality.

Then and only then should the state of Nevada consider approaching their citizens to approve any additional tax increases.

People from Nevada should contact their representatives to make sure they are aware of their outrage at state spending, and demand that it be reigned in.

Op-Ed Faults Low Taxes for Nevada's Problems

Michael Wixom, a higher-up in the Nevada state education system, has (shockingly) declared that taxes in the state of Nevada are far too low!

"(T)hese additional and extreme budget cuts exacerbate the problem — they are not the solution. We will be dismantling much of what we have built, primarily for the sake of keeping tax rates low — the low tax rates that have been an illusory promise of prosperity."

Michael, let's not confuse the total amount of money spent on educational spending with educational results. If spending vast amounts of money on education actually did lead to superior results, we'd have scores of Nobel Laureates emerging from the Washington DC public school system every year.

In fact, if you want the people of the state of Nevada to submit to higher taxes, you better be prepared to disclose salaries, benefits and perks provided to the leadership of the Nevada public educational system and be prepared to slash those amounts where appropriate.

I think we can all agree that far too much of the so-called educational spending is not actually being spent directly on children, but rather to pay outsized salaries, benefits and pensions to bureaucrats. Enough is enough.