Clark County schools get budgets as reorganization inches along

Clark County schools officially embarked on the budgeting process for the 2018-19 school year Wednesday as they received their so-called strategic budgets from the district.

District officials released the funding allocation for individual school budgets as part of the state-mandated law overhauling and reorganizing the state’s largest district. The law tries to improve student achievement by putting more spending and policy decisions in the hands of principals and school communities.

The budgets should look like the ones that were distributed last year for the current school year with two key additions, said Jason Goudie, the district’s chief financial officer. Schools have new line items for custodial services and site-based technicians, responsibilities that were transferred to the control of the principals in late October.

“They’re using this budget in order to put together their operational plan,” he said.

Schools will also be able to see, but not yet control, about 35 to 40 more budget items after the School Board reluctantly approved a recommendation last week. Services such as graduation and police officials will be itemized in a separate spreadsheet.

The district also is creating “service-level agreements” that will detail what is being provided to individual schools. Spending on those services still will be controlled by the central office, but school officials will be able to more clearly see what they are getting for that money.