The Clark County School Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a new, $214 million two-year contract with the Clark County Education Association (CCEA). About $114 million was provided by SB500, the main K-12 education budget bill of the 2025 session, and another $70 million came from AB398, a supplemental bill focused on addressing hard-to-fill positions. 

Here’s a look at what the new contract entails: 

1. Pay raises available, but not across the board. 

The previous contract resulted in teacher pay raises of more than 20 percent. It was the result of a historic K-12 education funding boost approved by state lawmakers in 2023. 

This year, the district’s funding stayed flat while its costs increased, limiting CCSD’s resources, Board President Irene Bustamante Adams said during a Tuesday press conference. 

“There was no cost-of-living adjustment in this contract, because there was no funds for that,” CCEA Executive Director John Vellardita reiterated in a Friday interview. 

Without a cost-of-living adjustment, the district’s starting teacher salary will stay at about $57,000, and Vellardita said CCSD’s overall teacher salary schedule is regionally competitive.  

Still, the contract does allow for teachers, except those who are newly hired, to move up a step in their salary schedule each year of the contract, resulting in pay raises up to $3,400 over the next two years. Vellardita estimates 16,500 teachers — a majority of the district’s teachers — will get those step increases. 

In addition, about 3,000 teachers will potentially qualify for a column advancement on the salary schedule based on professional development training they’ve completed, which amounts to a $6,500 increase to their base pay, Vellardita said. 

The contract also includes differential pay for teachers in certain hard-to-fill, high-vacancy teaching positions, funded by $70 million in state funds allocated to the district. Vellardita said that amounts to $5,000 in additional compensation for those teachers as well as special education teachers at any Title I schools. 

The contract also increases the district’s contribution to teachers’ health insurance for the next two years. 

2. There’s help for veteran teachers making less than new hires. 

The contract includes a provision for salary review and adjustment for teachers whose salary schedules were negatively affected after CCSD increased the starting teacher salary in 2022. After the 2023-25 contract was approved, veteran teachers were left making less than incoming teachers with the same qualifications.

The contract sets aside $10 million each year to make these salary adjustments. It states the adjustment will be granted in order of seniority and will prioritize teachers affected by the compaction, followed by teachers in Title I schools and teachers in non-Title I schools. If the funds run out before the district is able to get to all eligible teachers during the first year of review, those teachers will be prioritized during the next round.

To get an adjustment, teachers must request a review from CCEA and submit documentation, such as their years of experience and proof of degrees and college credits from accredited institutions that are relevant to the subjects they teach, so the union can determine whether they meet the eligibility requirements. CCSD gets final say. 

Jeremy Heckler, president of a separate local labor group, the Nevada Education Association of Southern Nevada, said in an interview he and other teachers were concerned about the union’s involvement in this process and questioned whether CCEA would prioritize reviews for union members over nonmembers.

Vellardita pushed back and said those kinds of accusations are a “gross mischaracterization of the good faith effort” that the union made to take on work that the district doesn’t have the capacity for. 

“I'm not going to let my organization's integrity be impeached,” he said. 

The district’s General Counsel Jon Okazaki said during the Tuesday school board meeting that it is illegal for CCEA or CCSD to treat an employee differently because of their union membership status. 

But Okazaki did state that the $10 million allocated each year may not be enough to cover all eligible teachers. 

3. Teachers will cover higher costs of retirement plans. 

Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) contributions are typically split between employers and state employees. Last negotiation cycle, CCSD agreed to use funds allocated by SB231, a teacher pay raise bill, to cover teachers’ increased retirement contributions. But Vellardita said that funding wasn’t available this time around, leaving teachers responsible for footing a 1.625 percent PERS increase that took effect this July. 

“I think some people aren't aware that that is an investment in their pension … and that there's no obligation on the part of the school district to do it,” he said. “Frankly, there's just absolutely no money to do it in this contract.”

Even though they’ll eventually see that money when they retire, Heckler said many teachers can’t help but to see this as a pay cut.

“It’s very frustrating for people because so many are living tight right now,” he said. 

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