On Monday, Senate Education Committee chair Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, released a new education funding formula. For years, many Democrat politicians have criticized the current education funding formula, called the Nevada Plan. They claim it’s old and outdated. Their biggest beef is that it doesn’t allocate more money for students who are English Language Learners or live in poverty. The theory is that it’s harder to educate those students and so they need additional services, which costs additional money.
Democrats introduced Senate Bill 545 yesterday. It would move the proceeds from the sales tax
tax on the retail sale of marijuana into the Distributive School Account. Speaker Jason Frierson
said the move would send “about $120 million to the DSA over the biennium.” The Clark
County School District says it needs $120 million more to fund the raises promised by Sisolak.
Combine those two bits of information and it looks like a solution is in sight. In reality, this move doesn’t change education funding by one dime.