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District credits stimulus for jobs saved, created
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Apr. 10, 2012 | 9:48 a.m.
The Clark County School District has saved or created 1,400 teaching and support staff jobs with federal stimulus funds, officials said Monday.
The district is the state's single largest recipient of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, It was awarded $165.1 million as of last month and has 35 percent of Nevada's 4,000 education jobs that reportedly were saved through the stimulus.
The district, which serves more than 309,000 students, has a $2.19 billion operating budget this year. That is $11 million less than its operating budget for the previous year.
It made $120 million in program cuts this year to keep up with increasing expenses such as worker benefits and salary increases.
Because of the federal stimulus funds, Superintendent Walt Rulffes said the district is in relatively good shape this year and next school year. But he worries about what will happen when the stimulus funds are gone.
The district runs the risk of falling "off the funding cliff," Rulffes said.
Patrick Gibbons, an education consultant with the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute who is a critic of the stimulus, thinks the number of saved jobs probably was "overstated."
Last spring, the district announced it was eliminating 854 employee positions to save money. The job cuts included 209 teaching positions and 592 support staff.
By September, all affected teachers and about half of the affected support staff were able to find other jobs within the district. Another 200 affected support staffers have gotten temporary jobs or "on-call assignments."
The district expects to receive $82.3 million in federal stabilization funds this school year. The funding is intended to offset declining state and local tax revenue.
The district will receive an additional $109 million for special education programs and Title I schools, which have large populations of children from low-income families.
Also, the district will issue $104 million in new bonds this year to be financed through the federal stimulus. The bonds will be used for school renovations.
Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.
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CCSD toots its horn on how many jobs it has saved/created: see my Clark County School Watch blog on this over on http://bit.ly/2oYs7S
It's the same story all over again. The feds feed millions in funds to the district that in turn takes the dough and investes in more administrators, consultants, specialists, district directors, advisors; in the meantime they overload classes with 40-45 students, increase the paper work and make-work crappola of teachers and pay little attention to the student achievement.
Walt Rulffes is in charge of the largest financial enterprise in the entire state of Nevada, yet he cries woes about the lack of funding for his kingdom. If he were in charge of all of the strip hotel casinos he would still be a loser; he would have been fired for incompetency, lack of knowledge, and for the continualwaste of financial resources.
If he were emplolyed by The Microsoft Corporation and Bill Gates just how long do you think he would have remained as a chief executive officer there?
Shazam! He is the wizard of education in the CCSD and is the hero of the trustees; with the exception of Trustee Linda Young, the other six members are incompetent, leaderless clowns who blindly follow their appointed leader and his cronie appointments. This board doesn't really have a clue about education or the operation of this district. Just rember all of the special administrative positions they have created and filled while eliminating teaching positions and crying poor mouth at the same time.
Your students lack adequate textbooks, classes are overcrowded, and teachers must use their own funds to purchase vital teaching materials including paper. The solution to all of this is simple: DEMAND THE BOARD FIRE WALT RULFFES and then RESIGN AS TRUSTEES ASAP.
And if you check the hiring going on at the District, many of those jobs would be administrative, i.e, $60,000+ per year in an organization that is already ridiculously top heavy. Good ol' boy Walt is making sure to keep his cronies around him to support the lousy job he continues to do.