Reporting an estimated $10 million budget deficit, the Clark County School District (CCSD)  has been appointed a Compliance Monitor by Governor Joe Lombardo and  the State of Nevada Department of Education (NDE) following the district’s non-compliance with state law, NRS 387 and 388G. The appointed Compliance Monitor is Yolanda King, a former 33-year employee and County Manger of Clark County and the current President of the Nevada Taxpayers Association.

In September, CCSD sent numerous warnings to principals around the district of a budget shortfall due to the district’s failure to account for an eight percent salary increase for licensed professionals, resulting in higher operating costs than school budgets would allow.

Following this announcement, Governor Lombardo and the Nevada Department of Education requested answers from CCSD. After a review of those responses, the governor and Superintendent Jhone Ebert issued a Notice of Non-Compliance and a formal request for a Corrective Action Plan late yesterday afternoon to Interim Superintendent Dr. Brenda Larson-Mitchell and CCSD President Evelyn Garcia Morales.

“After reviewing CCSD’s responses, NDE remains concerned about the District’s leadership, policies, and processes that prevented CCSD’s local school precincts from receiving timely and accurate funding information prior to the start of the 2024-25 school year,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert.

With the district in non-compliance, CCSD will be required to:

• Develop a Corrective Action Plan, in coordination with the appointed Compliance Monitor, and submit it to the Superintendent of Public Instruction by Friday, December 27, 2024.
• Begin implementation of the state-approved Corrective Action Plan by Thursday, January 9, 2025.
• Review the Compliance Monitor’s written reports as an agenda item at each school board meeting.
• Allow the Compliance Monitor to attend any meetings related to the reorganization and operations of CCSD.
• Compensate the Compliance Monitor and provide the Compliance Monitor with access to district buildings, information, and resources as needed.

“Clark County students, teachers, and families deserve to have confidence in their school district,” said Governor Joe Lombardo. “To help CCSD meet compliance standards, we have appointed a Compliance Monitor to the district, and we will require CCSD to develop and implement processes to improve communication and transparency through a Corrective Action Plan. As I’ve reiterated since taking office, unprecedented funding requires unprecedented accountability, and we will not accept a lack of accountability for our school district.”

In one of his first Executive Orders last year, Lombardo mandated an audit of Nevada’s 17 Public School Districts and the State Public Charter School Authority.

The Executive Order cites, “Nevada taxpayers invest over $5 billion annually in the operations of the State’s public schools; and, K-12 education accounted for $3.2 billion in general fund appropriations approved by the Nevada State Legislature for the 2021-23 biennium, more than any other function of state government.”

Last legislative session, the governor signed a historic $12 billion education budget, allocating $4 billion to CCSD, the largest school district. In September the district announced it was facing a potential budget deficit due to spending $53 million on litigation and $15 million in cybersecurity costs.

As reported by the Review-Journal:

In October, the Nevada Department of Taxation appointed a subcommittee to monitor the budget and fiscal activities of the school district. The subcommittee will make a recommendation in January on whether the department’s committee on local government finance should place the school district on a fiscal watch.

Lombardo has also called on the Legislature to expand an ongoing performance audit of the CCSD to include the potential shortfall, examine how the district allocates funding to individual schools and determining how those processes might have broken down. In response, State Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager announced a mid-December hearing of the Interim Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Education Accountability.

Passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Lombardo last session, Assembly Bill 517 required the Audit Division of the Legislative Counsel Bureau to conduct an audit of certain school districts, including CCSD. Though CCSD’s current budget issues are outside the scope of the original inquiry, the Legislative Commission can amend the scope of the ongoing audit, so that the audit now includes an investigation into CCSD’s current budget.

CCSD CAP Letter 11.25 Final CCSD Notice of Non-Compliance 11.25 Final