A bill released with one week left in the legislative session seeks to delay the Clark County School District reorganization that’s scheduled to take effect in the fall -- at least for funding purposes -- and give schools control over a smaller share of their budget than originally proposed.

The bill, introduced Monday by Democratic Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson and Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford, is a long-awaited follow-up to a measure codifying the controversial regulations surrounding the reorganization. That first bill, AB469, came about amid a lawsuit from the district’s trustees that was later dropped.

Senate Republican leader Michael Roberson, who’s played a key role in planning the details of the reorganization following its passage in the 2015 legislative session, criticized the bill as a “CCSD wishlist.”

“This bill deserves and warrants a hard veto,” he said, adding that the changes to the weighted funding formula were “gobbledygook.”

The new bill, AB516, would reduce the amount of money that the district is required to transfer to local school precincts from 80 percent of the per-school allotment in the first year and 85 percent every subsequent year, to 70 percent the first year and 75 percent thereafter. It also removes a requirement that the large school district remains responsible for maintenance and custodial services.

The bill calls for the reorganization take effect -- at least for purposes of money distribution -- in the 2018-2019 school year, rather than the 2017-2018 school year.

Nicole Rourke, a lobbyist for the district, said the district’s staff believes they can’t get 70 percent of funding to individual schools until January 2018, and thinks that 75 percent is a more sensible long-term goal.

“Right now I think that's what's doable,” she said. “We have some expert input into that process and that's what we're hearing from our experts.”

Part of that has to do with positions that need to remain “centrally budgeted” because those workers serve multiple schools. If a speech therapist rotates between five schools, the aging, existing payroll system isn’t able to draw that worker’s pay from the budgets of five different schools.

That’s part of the reason the district is advocating for a new, $17 million human capital management system. A bill is being drafted that would apply state funds to the process, although the details haven’t been released.

"While the district is working to increase the percentage of funds going to schools, we believe additional time is needed to thoughtfully work through the steps necessary to ensure a successful transition," the district said in a statement Tuesday morning.

But critics include Clark County Education Association chief John Vellardita, who says the district hasn't moved quickly to convert the central office into  a service agency from which campuses can buy only what they need.

"These guys are still grasping at straws, trying to stop the momentum of change with this trailer bill that says let's put less money into the buildings.," he said. "They haven't made any hard decisions."

The bill introduced Monday also seeks a change to the requirement that the district have a weighted funding formula in place. Lawmakers are currently discussing a bill and at least $72 million in funding to implement the weights, but without such a bill in place, Rourke said schools could be forced to give up some funding and send it to another school with more needy students.

“The concern is that we'll get in this situation where we take from one school and give to another and we just can't do that. We don't have enough funding. No school has enough funding,” she said. “All we're asking for is to follow the state's lead on how that's implemented.”

It changes provisions about the membership of the site-based school organizational teams (SOTs) that oversee individual school budgets, removing a requirement that a member of a local bargaining unit be included in the team.

The reorganization aims to move control from the central office and toward individual school sites. The introduction doesn’t exactly come as a surprise — lawmakers in March said they would address concerns with the reorganization process in a so-called “trailer bill.” Trustees dropped their lawsuit against the reorganization earlier in May.

No hearing date has been set. Vellardita says legislative leadership is already aware that his union, local municipalities and education advocacy groups will testify against it when  that happens.

"At this point in the game, all the crap that's in there -- and I call that crap on the part  of these Luddites," he said, "they're going to all come out publicly against this trailer."

Updated at 4:10 p.m. Monday to add comment from Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson and at 11:50 a.m. Tuesday to add comment from John Vellardita and CCSD.

Feature photo: Fourth graders work on math at Pat Diskin Elementary School in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Feb. 07, 2017. Jeff Scheid/Nevada Independent @jeffscheid