Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) joined state lawmakers and Clark County School District officials on Monday to call for a long-term solution to a K-12 education funding issue plaguing school districts experiencing deeper-than-expected enrollment declines. 

Earlier this month, the state's largest school district, Clark County, was facing a $51.6 million budget cut in the middle of the school year — a financial position that prompted fears of layoffs.

Those plans were paused after the governor's office announced an emergency regulation last Friday allowing the state to use previously allocated per pupil funding approved by Legislature during the 2025 legislative session. Those projected totals approved at the time are higher than the actual enrollment in many districts across the state this school year.

During a Monday press conference at Howard Wasden Elementary School in Las Vegas, Lombardo described it as a temporary solution and stressed the need for the Legislature to come together to find a long-term one. 

"We are not pretending that enrollment trends are going to disappear," Lombardo said.

What does the emergency regulation do? 

Lombardo said the affected school districts will receive additional funding for the next 120 days, which leads up to the start of the next legislative session on Feb. 1, 2027. 

Those school districts will get monthly payments, starting next month, with the first payment expected to be about $13.4 million across all districts.

The governor's office did not immediately provide a breakdown of how much each district is getting. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Victor Wakefield said the total payment may be higher in subsequent months as the state gets updated enrollment figures. 

According to data provided by the governor's office, all school districts except Lincoln County and the State Public Charter School Authority had enrollments lower than what the Legislature budgeted for. 

Where is the funding coming from? 

Wakefield said the funds are coming from the existing state budget account for school funding.

"It's actually dollars that were discussed, vetted, approved during the '25 session, and right now they were just in a carry forward account because we spent less than what was legislatively approved this past year," Wakefield said during the press conference. 

Wakefield said the move will buy time for lawmakers to work with Lombardo to find a long-term solution. 

"The purpose of this action is not to preserve every existing structure indefinitely," he said. "It is to give districts the runway to make thoughtful decisions rather than disruptive ones."

Why is this happening now?

Wakefield said the state began seeing enrollment trends shift last year, but it became clear this year that the decline is sustained and deeper than anticipated.

Wakefield explained that Nevada's K-12 funding formula, the Pupil-Centered Funding Plan, or PCFP, is built around the principle that money should follow the student.  

The formula measures enrollment on a quarterly basis, and if enrollment fluctuates throughout the school year, so will districts' state funding. 

Wakefield described the formula, adopted in 2021, as a "really well-intended policy at a time when there was a lot of growth."

Heading into the 2026-27 school year, Clark County School District had to cut school and administrative budgets, including teacher and staff positions, after facing enrollment declines. The district has said those cuts from the spring did not result in teacher layoffs. But last fall, it laid off 37 support staff members because of similar budget issues.

Superintendent Jhone Ebert said with this emergency funding, a small percentage of employees may have to move to a new position, possibly in another school, but no one will lose their job this school year. 

What do officials propose doing about it? 

So far, ideas for a long-term solution largely center around amending the funding formula.

Clark County schools are working on a bill draft request that proposes funding districts based on student counts from a single point in time the previous year or their three-year enrollment average, whichever is higher.

"CCSD's goal is to mitigate the effects of statewide declines in student enrollment across all school districts because, as mentioned, this is not just a CCSD issue, this is a state issue," Ebert said at the press conference. 

Wakefield suggested using a quarterly average approach to calculate enrollment for funding purposes. But he said he also wants to ensure that growing schools still have an opportunity to get more funding to fit their needs.

According to the figures provided by Lombardo's office, only the state charter school authority saw significant growth from its enrollment projection from the 2025 fiscal year to its most recent enrollment figure from last quarter. Charter schools enrollment rose to 73,793 total students, an increase of 1,491. 

When asked whether increasing per pupil funding could be part of the long-term solution, Wakefield said, "I support strategic investment of as many dollars as we can marshal to our kids."