Nevada takes baby steps for schools

IF there’s one thing the past week in Carson City taught us, it’s that you can’t promise the world without the tools to deliver. And right now, Nevada lawmakers just don’t have the tools (that is, the funding) to fix public education.

Let’s break it down.

SB 543 would overhaul the current education funding formula, the Nevada Plan of 1967.

Under the bill, the state would create a new base per-pupil amount that has yet to be calculated (for context, a 2018 study recommended $9,238 per pupil as adequate).

The bill also would provide more money for every child in special education or gifted programs, those who are in poverty and English language learners. That money would be doled out for each student as an additional fraction of the base per-pupil amount, which also has yet to be determined.

It also would end a practice known as “supplanting,” according to Sen. Mo Denis, D-las Vegas, who helped draft it.

Right now, the state’s general fund is the last source of revenue used for basic per-pupil support. If other state revenues come in higher than projected, education money is returned to the general fund. Over

$477 million allocated for schools has been returned since fiscal year 2000.

This bill would require that the state general fund contribution increase when state revenues increase — and likewise decrease when the economy is not so hot. But if any money is left over attheendofthebiennium, it would not revert to the general fund.

SB545 would redirect the 10 percent retail marijua

past his 19th birthday, on Feb. 24, 1961. He worked in special weapons, carried heavy equipment and even spent some time in the Pentagon as he made his way up the ranks.

He met his late wife, Elena, in

1963, when he was celebrating his 21st birthday in the Philippines. He approached her as she sat with a group of other women, and they began talking.

“You know, you and I, we’re getting married,” he recalled telling her.

It took 17 months for him to persuade her, but, true to his word, they were married in 1964 on the Fourth of July.

Smith’s father, Philip, who served for a short time in the 1920s, never talked about military life, Smith said. His three uncles all served in World War II.

Vietnam “was the war we had, and I thought at that time that I should go, and I did, because my brother had fought in Korea,” Smith said. “Then I started to see what was going on, and I didn’t protest or anything, but I didn’t really like it, because I had met a bunch of beautiful people there.”

Reunion kindled interest

Smith learned of his deep military roots when he and his family attended a reunion outside Pittsburgh in 2009, when talk turned to Smith’s younger brother, Phillip, who had died as a baby.

Smith took an interest in his family genealogy and soon discovered his late uncle Lagene Smith, who served as an Army cook in Italy during World War II, had kept an extensive

record of the family lineage.

That’s when he found the tattered photos and military records of his great-great-grandfather William Smith, who served as a captain in the War of 1812. William Smith’s father, Samuel, and his brother, James Smith, formed a ranger unit in 1765 to defend their community against raiding Native American war parties. When the Revolutionary War began, their militia joined many other outfits to help form what became the Continental Army, according to records that Clifford Smith uncovered.

Clifford Smith also has some vivid memories from his service. He remembers once pausing to watch a Douglas A-1 Skyraider approach for a landing in Vietnam when he saw a venomous blue-green snake was entangled in his boots, a mouse dangling from its mouth.

Another time, he said, he literally bumped into John Wayne while preparing aircrafts at Da Nang Air Base in Vietnam to be shipped to Thailand. Wayne was at the base to shoot the 1968 film “The Green Berets.”

“He was an awesome guy,” Smith recalled. “He was big. He didn’t even move when I hit him, and I was going full force.”

Afterward, the two had beers together, he said.

But, he said, all his military memories eventually circle back to the Smith legacy. To Clifford Smith, it’s about serving.

“Serving the best country in the world, keeping it safe and secure,” he said. “And keeping the same tradition that our forefathers did.”

Contact Briana Erickson at berickson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5244. Follow @brianarerick on Twitter.