CCSD Budget Woes Lead To Financial Babysitter
Clean up your room, or you’re going to be punished. The CCSD budget was flooded with cash in the latest legislative session – $4 billion in funding. Yet somehow the district didn’t do the math correctly and had a budget shortfall. Now the Governor wants accountability.
Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo has tapped Yolanda King, who is the President of the Nevada Taxpayers Association and leader of King Strategies LLC, to serve as a compliance monitor to oversee the daily ins and outs of the district. They are now under a close watch for CCSD budget blunders.
CCSD Budget Mismanagement Caused Extra Oversight
The Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert sent a letter down to CCSD leadership, namely Interim Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell and the Board President Evelyn Garcia Morales to let them know a nanny is coming.
Their lack of compliance falls out of line with the law, so King will be in every meeting and will help them with their homework: to make a plan to ensure this never happens again. Once she submits that plan to the state by December 27th, the district will have about two weeks to live by it effective January 9th, 2025.
The CCSD budget deficit was, in the district’s best guess, around $10 million, which the district partially blames on expensive lawsuits. They also forgot to factor in the teacher salary hikes that were agreed upon after an incredibly long and drawn out process with former Superintendent Jesus Jara.
Jara had made quick work of decent raises for support staff and executives, but the teachers raises were delayed long enough that the then financial head of CCSD had to send in a budget with the knowledge he had, not with what was agreed upon.
The massive oversight of those raises left schools scrambling to make up the shortfall, which led to the loss of programs and even some staff.
