An interim legislative panel voted along party lines on Wednesday to reject a proposal from Gov. Joe Lombardo to fund a school choice scholarship program with federal COVID aid dollars, effectively keeping program funding at its lowest level since 2017 in a move that school choice advocates have argued could risk scholarships for hundreds of students.
In a meeting that drew hours of public comment and stretched into the evening, members of the Interim Finance Committee — which makes state spending decisions when the Legislature is out of session and is split 15-7 between Democrats and Republicans — pressed scholarship groups and the governor’s office on the underlying financials of the request to send $3.2 million from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to bolster the program.
Democrats, who all voted against the funding, repeatedly questioned Lombardo’s Chief of Staff Ben Kieckhefer on whether the money would go to keeping students on existing scholarships or if it would serve as a backdoor expansion for new students and new scholarships.
Read more from The Nevada Independent.
