Auditors ask educators to put funding procedures in writing

Auditors on Tuesday urged education officials to clean up and put in writing all the procedures used for administering the state's education funding.

More than $1.2 billion a year is administered through the Nevada Plan, which collects education money statewide in the "distributive school account" then divides it up on a per-pupil basis to ensure that every public school student in the state has an equal opportunity for an education.

The plan takes into account not only how many students are in each district, but factors including operating costs, professional salaries and the relative wealth of the districts.

Auditors said the formula evolved over the years, often without written justification and procedures. They said many in the 17 school districts were unclear how parts of it worked and whether they were getting their fair share of funding.

They urged the Education Department to document the entire formula and how it is administered, develop ways of ensuring it is doing the job of fairly dividing money according to need, and consider whether the formula should be modified.

Superintendent of Education Mary Peterson, however, said she believes the existing formula is doing an excellent job. She said at least one national report singled out Nevada's as the best state system for ensuring equal funding among large, small, rich and poor districts.

"Nevada's formula was the most effective in redistributing funding," she said.

She said a 1999 report by the National Council of State Legislators also pointed out that Nevada is one of just five states which has never had its formula challenged in court.

"I believe the (distributive school account) has served Nevada well," said Peterson.

But she agreed details of how the plan is administered should be better documented.

Auditors told the governor and other members of the audit commission the Prison Medical Services system needs to contract through the state's Public Employees Benefit Program which provided it much better discounts than it now gets from a private contract. They said the savings could have been nearly $400,000 over this two-year budget cycle.

And they recommended shopping around different hospitals to save money on non-emergency medical procedures for inmates, pointing out that, too, could save thousands per case for expensive surgical procedures.

The report said Nevada should do a better job of getting local agencies to reimburse the state for medical services provided their inmates and called for much tighter inventory and other controls in the prison system pharmacies.

Prison Medical Director Rex Reed told the commission many of those changes are already happening.

The third audit presented Tuesday called for revamped, simplified and faster billings by state forestry officials of fire costs. It said the state needs new procedures for billing costs such as aircraft rates for fire retardant bombers.

Forester Roy Trenoweth said determining the costs for fighting fires is a complex process, with several agencies, companies and individuals involved in almost every incident.

Pilots complained to the Board of Examiners after last year's fires that it took far too long to get paid. The billing process averaged more than 6 months, according to the audit report.

The agency promised to try develop a quicker, cleaner billing process.