But Clark County officials say they intend to ask voters for a tax freeze in the November election that could address building needs for the next 10 years. The legislation does not make any state contribution to help pay for capital expenses. Much of that money comes in the form of one-time, targeted expenditures, such as the work on state standards. The law mandates the creation of a Commission on Educational Technology charged with deciding the best way to spend the money. At least three teachers must be part of any group seeking a charter, which the county school board would have to approve if it met the law's requirements.
Charter schools are to receive a proportionate amount of the district's per-pupil funding.
To secure passage of the measure, proponents agreed to provisions requiring 75 percent of a charter school's teachers to be certified, and making charter teachers a part of the local collective bargaining unit. Legislation that would allow new districts to be created by referendum has met with rejection several times, and another such proposal died in committee in 1997. Opponents said it was telling, however, that the chief advocates of district breakups hailed from relatively wealthy suburban communities. The state's equalized school funding system would presumably not allow such breakaway districts to pour local tax money into operating budgets, but opponents said residents of a high-wealth area could escape the responsibility of paying for construction and maintenance elsewhere by forming a new district. It was school construction issues that led residents of affluent Incline Village, on the northern shore of Lake Tahoe, to persuade the legislature to pass a bill last year that would allow them to secede from Washoe County.