The education senator?

Sen. Bob Beers wants less money for school administrators, more for students

By Steve Sebelius

Mercury: What kind of session do you think it's going to be?

Beers: Much less contentious than last year. Two reasons: One is, money will be aplenty. And the second reason is that I think, in general, Republican and Democrat legislators agree on a lot of the problems, at least what they are.

Mercury: What are the three top issues?

Beers: The Clark County School District. One out of five high school seniors [are] denied diplomas for failing a proficiency exam. The budget. Homeowners associations.

Mercury: The property tax thing has been big. What do you think a fair solution to that would be?

Beers: Well, a market solution would be to press the federal government to release more land. My understanding of what's causing the run-up in property value is demand is exceeding supply. So if we increase the supply, then we'll come back to a normal level, or at least stop [rising] as rapidly as we are.

The real pain here in my opinion is people who are on a fixed income. The younger audience of the Mercury may be quick to dismiss this issue, but there are lots and lots of people...[who] can't increase their income. They can't work an overtime shift for extra money.

Mercury: If you had to say your No. 1 goal, what would that be for this session?

Beers: Causing the percentage of high school seniors denied their diploma for failing a proficiency exam in June of 2006 to be cut in half.

Mercury: So what is it about Clark County? Too big?

Beers: Well, I compare Clark County to other school districts. I recently had a debate with [Clark County School District Superintendent] Carols Garcia on a bill I've introduced that would limit the number of offsite administrators. And he waved the Legislative Counsel Bureau audit that says the ratio of administrators to students is about midline compared to our peer school districts. The problem is that Legislative Counsel Bureau audit did not look at offsite administrators at all; that ratio is only calculated for onsite administrators, that is, administrators who are attached to a school.

Mercury: The obvious nexus is by eliminating those surplus administrators, that money goes toward this goal of graduating more students?

Beers: It may be more than just the allocation of resources into the classroom. It may as well be the source of flawed decision-making that in fact slows our kids down.

Mercury: You've kind of answered this before, but special session or no?

Beers: No.

Mercury: Why do you think that is? Is it because of politics?

Beers: I think that there's a sense of tiredness about special sessions, one. Two, the folks who control the agenda have multiple motives to avoid a special session.

Mercury: And those include fund-raising for the next office?

Beers: And public perception about the next office. I imagine that legislative leaders feel it's important for them to enter a constitutional office race with a recently clean record, and some people argue that special sessions are a sign of a poorly managed legislative process.

Mercury: What if this is growing pains? Nevada's inching ever closer to a full-time Legislature?

Beers: No. Utah has twice our population and they meet as much as we do. Now they do it a little different and I think their way makes more sense, which is 60 days every year, instead of 120 days every two years. But I look at California's Legislature, which is full-time, and certainly can't see that they've done any better job running their state government than we've done running ours.

Mercury: If you could change one thing about the Legislature, what would it be?

Beers: Winston Churchill said that democracy was the worst form of government ever invented by mankind, except for all the other forms of government ever invented by mankind. I guess the really Pollyanna-ish piece of me would make it so no one had to be in the minority. I'll bet 50 percent of the members of the majority have more influence than the leader of the minority.

Mercury: You mentioned education, but are there any other issues beyond the budget that interest you?

Beers: I think the district that I represent has a lot of homeowners association issues. I'll be putting some attention there as well.

Mercury: There have been some lawmakers who have proposed laws that have to do with local growth issues. Should they do that?

Beers: The alternative is home rule, where a group of citizens can get together and lock arms with their neighbors and say, "We'd like to form a city." And I'm not entirely sure that that's not a better idea. I am a pretty strong believer in as much self-determination for people as possible, and that seems to be a component. Even if we did have home rule, the Legislature would still have the ability to influence growth.