My passion for education goes way back—to the days I volunteered in my children’s schools, to serving as Nevada PTA President and the first parent involvement coordinator for the Washoe County School District.
Over the past year and a half, I fought to restore millions of dollars in cuts to education proposed by Governor Gibbons. I am committed to continuing the fight to protect education funding in these very difficult economic times.
I am also committed to meaningful education reform. While we work to protect education funding from devastating cuts now, we must also look at ways we can improve our schools in the short-term and long term. We must reduce classroom overcrowding. We should reward teachers and administrators whose students show academic progress over the year. We must make sure every dollar possible is spent on the classroom—not bureaucratic overhead—and that every dollar spent produces results.
We need stable funding for our schools. I am reintroducing legislation that was vetoed by Governor Gibbons to establish a Rainy Day Fund for Education, an education savings account to prevent severe cuts to our schools in the future.
Jobs
No issue is more important in our state right now than our high unemployment rate. Our top priority must be to get Nevadans back to work as soon as possible, and we must also look past this current recession to jobs for the future.
Immediate job creation—We must continue to create jobs to get Nevadans back to work now. Earlier this year, we approved funding for road construction projects to create 8000 new jobs. Almost a million dollars in funding was released on July 1 for these road projects. In 2009, we also approved incentives for renewable energy development projects that create Nevada jobs, and those projects are now beginning to come on line.
We must, however, do more. I am helping to spearhead a “Nevada first” effort to make sure that public works jobs—those funded with taxpayer dollars—go to Nevada workers. I have also requested legislation for next session to make sure Nevada businesses are used whenever possible to supply materials to public works projects.
Jobs for the future—Our state has been particularly hard-hit by this world-wide recession because of our dependence on tourism. When people all over the world have no money to spend on travel, our economy suffers, with job losses not only in the tourism industry, but in construction and all services. We must look beyond our current economic downturn to the future of our state and our economy—at ways we can become a leader in renewable energy development, the manufacturing and distribution of goods, and in the health care industry.
Government Efficiency, Accountability and Transparency
We must make our state operate more efficiently by setting spending priorities, measuring performance and demanding accountability for every dollar spent.
I am leading the effort to limit the use of expensive outside consultants and requiring state agencies to report and justify all contracts. I am also committed to more accountability and transparency in our state budget process. Every state agency should be required to set priorities and measure progress toward meeting clearly stated goals. The public should be able to see—on an easy-to-understand website—how tax dollars are being spent and the results of that spending.