The Clark County School Board of Trustees spent a muddled three hours Thursday night deciding whether to approve transferring certain budget responsibilities to schools as part of the state-mandated reorganization.

Ultimately, the board voted 6-1 on two motions that transfer budgets for custodial and technology-related services to the school level. That means they’ll be part of schools’ strategic budgets rather than included in a central operations budget, but it doesn’t necessarily give principals more autonomy.

The board stopped short of giving the green light to a proposed pilot program that would have allowed select schools to outsource custodial services. Trustees raised a myriad of concerns that touched on student safety, liabilities to the district and the possibility of laying off current custodians if schools contracted with outside vendors.

“I don’t like outsourcing, and I don’t like stepping on the relationship and the loyalties that we have of our support staff over the years,” Trustee Linda Young said.

The discussion caused confusion among board members as they grappled with what the vote actually meant.

Last month, the board approved giving principals the responsibility for selecting, supervising and handling payroll for custodians, but a missing piece remained: the actual budget transfer. That’s what trustees needed to vote on Thursday night.

After a long and winding conversation with multiple clarifications from legal staff, the trustees voted to transfer the custodial budget only. The motion did not give approval for the district to move forward with the outsourcing pilot program, but the issue isn't entirely dead yet. 

Later in the meeting, trustees decided to have staff bring a request for purchase — which could be used to find outside vendors for custodial services — back to the Nov. 9 board meeting for consideration.

Board President Deanna Wright, who was visibly frustrated at points during the discussion, apologized after trustees clarified the motion and voted.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was just a little painful.”

Ten schools had expressed interest in purchasing custodial services from an outside vendor. Franchise Principal Katie Decker, who oversees three elementary schools, said the district has struggled to staff custodians when employees are sick or taking vacation — hence why she wanted to try hiring an outside vendor to perform those services at nighttime.

“I just want a service provided,” she said.

She won’t get that opportunity yet.

But nine schools will pilot a fee-based service delivery model for technology support and compliance. Instead of paying for a shared or full-time technology staff member, those schools will be able to request services from the district’s User Support Services Department and pay on a case-by-case basis.

That model, in theory, frees up money that the principals can put toward other purposes at their schools. Trustees approved this pilot program in a second motion concerning the technology budget transfer.

The impetus for these discussions is the reorganization, which aims to give more budgeting and decision-making power to individual school communities. The reorganization requires the district to transfer 85 percent of its unrestricted funds to the school level.

Trustee Kevin Child cast the lone vote opposing the transfer of custodial and technology-related budgets to the schools.