John Vellardita on His Plan to Raise a Billion Dollars for Education

John Vellardita is being generous. Magnanimous even. The new tax proposals he and his organization - the Clark County Education Association (CCEA) - are touting is for all issues in the state. Not just education.

“We have a contraction of dollars from the feds on Medicaid money, we have issues around mental health. I mean there’s other needs the states has… so raising additional revenue that’s outside of education… relieves an effort to try to draw from education.”

Vellardita and CCEA are collecting signatures for a ballot measure that would force the legislature to consider new revenue streams in 2021, or leave it to voters in 2022.

The first ballot measure is the Local School Support Tax, which is currently the largest tax going to education. It’s a statewide sales tax, currently at 2.6 percent. CCEA wants it to go to 4.1 percent.

Check out the graphs at the Guinn Center. The Local School Support Tax funds almost 29 percent of the state budget.

Along with the support tax, Vellardita is also collecting signatures so voters can weigh in on raising teh gaming tax, from 6.75% to 9.75%. That initiative is the source of his magnanimity. Gaming doesn’t go to schools. It goes to the General Fund. But Vellardita is calculating that if more money goes to other importing issues, then there will be more left over for schools.

Both taxes will, Vellardita says, raise $1.4 billion annually. That kind of money would transform school funding in Nevada.

CCEA has until November 18 to collect enough signatures to send a bill to the legislature. They have to collect nearly 98,000 signatures - at least 24,000 in each Congressional district in the state. After that, the legislature can vote up or down. If they vote up, then those taxes go into effect. If they vote down, then the initiative goes on the ballot in 2022. Just to make things more interesting, there’s another race in 2022. For Governor. Steve Sisolak will be trying to keep his job just when voters might be coming to the ballot to vote for two new taxes.

Oh, also, Vellardita hinted there may be a third ballot initiative directed at another state industry. We’ll keep you posted.