Seventieth Session

April 29, 1999

The hearing of the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means was called to order at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday April 29, 1999 by Chairman Morse Arberry Jr. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All Exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

The bill was withdrawn.

Ms. Giunchigliani said the bill was amended from the original version. The issue was a timely one, even with the budget confines of the present biennium. With the academic standards that were implemented in the 1997 session, the committee had not bothered to take a look at the issue of remediation. Summer school was the perfect opportunity to remediate students, and in addition the legislature finally put a stop to middle school students being passed on after failing three years in a row. A standard system was put into place, and most of the district had systems where the child had to pass either a test or a certain number of classes by the end of eighth grade before being promoted to high school. Commensurate with that, there was a need for remediation. No funding was provided for that. Summer school and inter-session were the perfect opportunities to provide remediation courses. The main issue was summer school had gotten so expensive that parents could not afford it. The bill appropriates $2 million in each year of the biennium for the purposes of paying for summer school or inter-session classes. In addition, many of the amendments were worked out with the school districts, and the

process, was flexible. The coursework in summer school had to be tied to curriculum.

Mr. Marvel asked what grades the bill applied to. Ms. Giunchigliani replied the bill applied to any grade level since the districts wanted that flexibility. Ms. Giunchigliani said the proficiency exams would need to be discussed and looked into so those exams were fair. Mr. Marvel was concerned the exams tested in areas that were not reflective of what the children had learned. Ms. Giunchigliani said summer school or inter-session would be the perfect opportunity for those kids struggling to beef up their skills in those one or two areas they need to pass on the proficiency exam. She believed the Governor's budget had funding for that type of remediation, and the committee just wanted to make sure they didn't forget that summer school and inter-session should be a service provided by districts and not expect parents to come up with money out of pocket to enroll the child.

Mrs. Cegavske said she thought the bill was something the school districts should have been doing for years. She supported what the bill did and hoped if the money was there the committee would fund the program. She indicated a number of issues still remained such as whether students that attended summer school or inter-session would need a passing grade to get credit for the class. Also, she said there had been discussion that if a parent could pay they would, but a fund could be established for those who could not.

Mrs. de Braga asked if the bill was geared specifically towards remediation. Ms. Giunchigliani said the bill provided for a variety of options and covered a number of different types of students. Mrs. de Braga asked if the bill was geared to an expansion of the program. Ms. Giunchigliani said it was, because typically summer school was geared solely towards picking up some additional coursework or if the student had failed a course in high school. Mrs. de Braga asked if the amount was anywhere near sufficient to cover what needed to be done. Ms. Giunchigliani said within those parameters in addition to doing the program as a grant structure would allow the bill would at least get the program off the ground for those students who most needed it. The districts could also establish a sliding fee scale. Mrs. de Braga asked if there would be a base amount for smaller districts if the funds were distributed based on enrollment. Mrs. Giunchigliani said she agreed the small districts should receive a base amount and it was represented in the bill.

Mr. Beers asked why the committee was going to pay the State Board of Education $40,000 to administer the program. Ms. Giunchigliani said that cost was for overhead, and although she was not sure what the exact cost was for, she assumed it was for administrative expenses.

Mr. Marvel asked if the parents would accept the program and take advantage of it. Ms. Giunchigliani said they would, and added that this issue was a priority for the Nevada Parent Teachers Association (PTA). It used to be that summer school was free, but the cost had slowly increased over the years. Summer school was absolutely necessary, and the kids begged for some kind of program in the schools. Mr. Marvel said he was concerned the program was not just a babysitting program. Ms. Giunchigliani said that was why a focus was put on curriculum.

Henry Etchemendy, Nevada Association of School Boards, supported A.B. 13 entirely. One of the questions associated with the bill dealt with the base amount of any district in the program. A similar type of language was included for the School-to-Careers program in the current law. From there the association used the model as a basis for the language for a base amount for each district that applied. On top of that, the apportionment would be based upon student enrollments. Mr. Etchemendy indicated that there would also be a strong evaluation component to the bill, and the implementation of the program and that was why the administrative fee was included in the bill. Mr. Etchemendy said he knew Nye County had summer school funded by the school district. When everyone had to take voluntary pay cuts, summer school was lost in Nye County and it had not been reinstated. The county said summer school was desperately needed, as well as financial support.

John Soderman, Assistant Superintendent for Personnel Services for Douglas County School District, said the district supported A.B. 13 and added the bill was greatly needed. Currently in Douglas County there were multi-track year-round schools and tuition-based summer schools and inter-sessions. A six-week summer school session would currently cost just around $100. He would also promote summer school for the younger grades since students who could not read by the third grade were already behind the learning curve. Mr. Soderman said the Nevada Education Reform Act (NERA) made student achievement the constant, and the amount of time it took the variable, when currently it was the opposite. One of the ways to provide additional time for students to catch up was to provide summer school and inter-session. It was also the number one question asked by parents, teachers and students. There was defined curriculum, described plans and standards, and the last thing that needed to be dealt with was to address those students who were struggling in the current system. A.B. 13 did that.

Mr. Marvel asked if the county could actually recruit the kids who needed the help to take summer school. Mr. Soderman said there were ways to identify those students, although they could not necessarily make them attend school. The county would do public relations and outreach and hopefully get those kids into the school programs. In addition, as students stopped getting automatically passed, the incentive to catch up and to pass would be greater.

Steve Williams, Washoe County School District, said the district was very much in support of A.B. 13. The best thing about the bill was that it required an application be submitted by the district, so it was not a given that every district would receive money for summer school. The district had to provide information through the Department of Education that the program would be much more than a babysitting service. Instead the program would have to perform valuable educational work in order to be funded. There was an accountability section built into the bill, which was important to the districts and the legislature. In regards to education, the entire session had been concerned about remediation and professional development, and A.B. 13 went a long way towards answering those remediation needs. The administration costs were in the bill because there was a lot of work to be done, and regardless of whether 1 or 2 percent was the right number, there were real costs involved in administering that program.

Mr. Marvel asked if there would be enough teaching staff to run the program. Mr. Williams said there would be.

Al Bellister, Nevada Education Association, stated the association supported the bill, and felt it was particularly important in the present era of high stakes testing, particularly at the secondary level, to give kids the opportunity to address any shortcomings they might have. Research backed up the fact that those kinds of targeted programs did in fact help improve student achievement.

Martha Tittle, Clark County School District, expressed her support for the bill.

Jane Moyle, Nevada Rural Alliance, said she supported the bill and appreciated the flexibility in the bill as well as the recognition that not always did one size fit all.

With no further testimony on A.B. 13 to come before the committee, the hearing was closed.

David Goldwater, Assembly District 10, said the bill came out of the Taxation Committee. He added Assemblyman Kelly Thomas had previously indicated the bill's merits because of the public policy of environmentalism as well as the policy of providing childcare. The bill granted an exemption in personal property tax. The Taxation Committee had found that personal property tax was an honor tax that was difficult to account for and to enforce. That was the only tax on which the assembly committee allowed any exemption bills. The committee decided any exemptions should only be limited to personal property. The bill allowed for an exemption in personal property for an employer that provided on-site child care. The monetary implications were extremely limited because there were very few employers that provided on-site child care. Concerns were noted that sometimes an employer might hire another company to provide the child care on site, and that they would then be able to take an exemption. One way to avert any budget implications was to make it effective after the current biennium, so that the exemption would be figured into the revenue calculations, which would be fairly limited.

Mary Walker, Carson City, Douglas and Lyon Counties, said she had sat down with assessors to figure out exactly what the tax implication might be. The $3.5 million in assessed value exemption would mean a decrease in personal property taxes of up to $100,000 per business. That was a very large incentive for somebody who was currently not providing on-site child care. There were only a few businesses which currently provided child care on-site. The provision, in NRS 42 said a person could provide for up to five children on site, and that only had to be on a part-time basis. The counties had some concerns about that. In Carson City, with $100,000 per business, the total exemption could be up to $800,000 depending on the number of businesses that utilized the provision. Part of the problem was the unknown number of businesses that would use the exemption. The counties concurred with Mr. Goldwater’s statement that the personal property taxes did need to be looked at over the biennium. The counties’ main concern was obviously the potential revenue loss for the local governments.

Mr. Marvel said the bill was too general the way it was currently written. He said he looked at his own district where the mining industry owned pieces of equipment that were worth a few million dollars. The committee certainly did not want to give those exemptions. He thought the committee needed to come up with a different definition of personal property.

With no further business to come before the committee concerning A.B. 562, the hearing on the bill was closed.

Mr. Bellister expressed the Nevada State Education Association’s support for the bill. If the bill was a way to help students come better prepared to school, and they felt it was, then the association was behind the measure all the way. As far as the association knew, there was a negligible fiscal impact from the bill.

Mr. Goldwater said the bill was presented to the Taxation Committee, and required a vote of the people to declare an amnesty period from the sales tax on school products. The bill was originally proposed and extended to University students and any sort of quasi-student. The Taxation Committee limited it to K-1 2 students, so to speak. The budgetary implications of the bill were difficult to determine. The Nevada Taxpayer's Association testified it would be very interesting to see if sales increased if sales taxes were forgiven for that period. The bill did not have any immediate budgetary implications, other than the cost of putting it on the ballot.

The hearing on A.B. 581 was closed after no further testimony on the bill was presented.

With no further business to come before the committee, the hearing adjourned at 4:35 p.m.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

Cynthia M. Cendagorta

Committee Secretary

APPROVED BY:

Morse Arberry Jr., Chairman

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