05-03-2025
Proposed state fund could help rural counties replace dilapidated school buildings
The gym at David E. Normal Elementary School in Ely. (Photo courtesy of White Pine School District)
In Nevada, the construction of new schools is typically decided and funded at the local level, using property taxes. That has made it mathematically impossible for poor rural districts to build new schools, regardless of how badly they may need them.
Assembly Bill 224, which received a hearing Monday in the Assembly Committee on Government Affairs, could change that. The bill would dedicate $100 million in state general obligation bonds for high-needs school construction projects in low-population counties that cannot fund them through typical means.
The bill was designed to address the needs of White Pine School District, which has the two oldest public school buildings in Nevada, but it could eventually help additional schools in rural counties with fewer than 15,000 residents.
Assemblymember Erica Mosca, the Las Vegas Democrat sponsoring the bill, said the funding mechanism established by the bill is a 'creative' solution to the growing problem of replacing dilapidated school buildings, which in some rural counties are more than a century old. In 2023, a bill to appropriate $100 million to White Pine SD for school construction failed to advance. AB 224, Mosca emphasized, is 'not an appropriation' and the money would eventually be paid back.
'We have to do something,' said Republican Assemblymember Bert Gurr, whose expansive district includes all of White Pine County. He described the physical conditions as 'the scariest thing I have seen for our kids in Nevada.'
Gurr, who Mosca noted helped on her bill, is sponsoring a bill this session to appropriate $100 million to White Pine SD. He acknowledged his bill is unlikely to pass. 'We all know where that's going to go,' he said.
Gurr said he's received pushback from commissioners in Elko County, which is also a part of his district.
'(They) think I'm crazy for pushing this because, 'Why not let White Pine build theirs; we build our schools,'' he said. 'But we had the ability to build schools. … White Pine doesnt have the tax base, doesn't have the economy.'
White Pine plans to directly contribute $13 million to construction but doesn't have the debt capacity for anything beyond that, according to the school district's chief financial officer, Paul Johnson. The estimated cost of a new school is $98 million.
AB 224 would revive and refund Nevada's Fund to Assist School Districts in Financing Capital Improvements, which lawmakers created in 1999 but has long laid dormant. To access the new funding, counties must be levying property tax at the highest amount allowable by state law. And the fund could only approve projects where at least one building has been condemned or is unsuitable for use due to safety hazards, or where the cost of renovating would be more than 40% the cost of constructing a new building.
White Pine SD meets those requirements and then some, testified students, administrators and district officials. White Pine's elementary school was originally built in 1909, and its middle school was built in 1913.
White Pine Middle School Principal Kristina Ernest told lawmakers the building is sinking and each hard rain brings tiles falling from the ceiling and new cracks in the foundation.
'My fear is we'll have a collapse of some sort and injuries and fatalities possibly,' she said.
White Pine student Ty Willman said that when he broke his leg and required a straight-leg cast he was forced to temporarily pivot to online classes because he could not get up or down the school's numerous flights of stairs.
'If someone moved to town in a wheelchair, they would not be able to go to school,' Willman added. 'My condition may be temporary but not everyone's is.'
The only ADA-compliant ramp in the school leads from outside to the first floor of the school. Lawmakers in prior sessions heard of students who were routinely carried up and down the stairs in order to get to classes. For yearlong accommodations, the school has had to relocate all of the classrooms for certain students onto the first floor.
The gym lacks a sprinkler system to aid in the event of a fire. The school also lacks a dedicated playground and instead uses a public park across the street, leaving the school unable to enforce protective or custodial orders involving their students.
Assemblymember Venise Karris, a Democrat from Las Vegas, recounted a recent trip to see the school for herself.
'As a former construction person, I could not take one step without thinking 'code violation, code violation,'' she said.
Nevada has eight counties whose population is less than the 15,000 threshold listed in the bill.
'(AB 224) will give hope to other counties who are in the same boat,' said Tom Clark for the Nevada Association of School Boards, which supports the bill. 'We have to have some sort of process, and a little bit of skin in the game from everyone across the state for these schools to be constructed.'
