Superintendent of the Washoe County School District (WCSD) Kristen McNeill held a briefing with media on Friday morning to provide updates on issues including a nearly two-decade-old legal dispute with Incline Village property owners, as well as COVID-19 mitigation efforts and the continuation of free meals through the district’s meal services program throughout the winter break.
How much will WCSD pay in the Incline Village tax settlement?
On Tuesday, the Washoe County Board of Commissioners decided to pull and not discuss an agenda item concerning a $56 million settlement agreement culminating from a 17-year dispute with property owners in Incline Village and Crystal Bay. The dispute concerns overpaid taxes based on property valuations between the years of 2003 and 2006 that could leave WCSD on the hook for nearly $20 million.
“Commission Chairman Bob Lucey pulled the items pertaining to this issue from the agenda, indicating that he would like to open conversations on the matter with Washoe County School District,” McNeill said during her briefing.
According to an Associated Press report published in the U.S. News & World Report, a judge ruled in October 2019 that the valuations on property owners in Incline Village and Crystal Bay “violated the state constitution because some residents received vastly different assessments and taxes than next-door neighbors with essentially the same residential lots.”
Under an agreement reached in August, the county was given 56 months to pay $23.8 million of the total $56 million settlement.
The remainder of the settlement amount — $32.2 million — is intended to be paid by WCSD, the State of Nevada, the Incline Village General Improvement District and the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District. Both the improvement district and the fire protection district have at one point sought legal recourse against the county’s intention to have them pay a part of the settlement. The improvement district removed itself from the suit filed against Washoe County. The court decided against the fire protection district.
“Washoe County School District does believe Washoe County is responsible for this.”
Washoe County commissioners were scheduled to vote on Tuesday, Dec. 15, whether or not to seek a share of the settlement from the school district–a total of more than $19 million, including about $10 million to reimburse overpaid taxes by Incline Village residents and nearly another $10 million in penalties.
Both McNeill and WCSD Board President Malena Raymond had in the past asked county commissioners to reject the settlement deal and have since contested that WCSD should not be held liable for paying any part of of the settlement—saying the overtaxing was a mistake made by Washoe County and its assessor’s office.
“We very much appreciate the opportunity to have an open and honest discussion with the County regarding this issue,” McNeill said of the decision to pull the settlement agenda item from Tuesday’s commission meeting.
“Again, Washoe County School District does not dispute that the residents of Incline Village should receive a refund for their over payment; however, Washoe County School District does believe Washoe County is responsible for this,” she added.
District advancing on three key COVID-19 efforts
McNeill said efforts to improve in three areas deemed by the board of trustees as critical to school reopenings—COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and increasing the number of available substitute teachers—is well underway.
Recently, the district has been short nearly 100 substitute teachers–even as middle and high schools have largely been placed on full-distance learning until the middle of January. However, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak in concert with the Nevada Department of Education cleared the way for the state’s largest school districts—Washoe and Clark—to join rural districts in temporarily disregarding state regulations that require substitute teachers to have both a license and at least 60 college credits. This emergency provision is expected to be in place at least through Feb. 24, and the district’s board of trustees have expressed an interest in seeing if it could be extended past that date.
McNeill said she wanted to extend thanks to Nevada DOE and the governor for passing the regulation, adding that the district’s human resources department has received “hundreds of contacts and forms returned” from potential substitute teachers.
“We’ve got a lot of interest,” she said. “I’d like to thank [the University of Nevada, Reno], its College of Education, and TMCC for pushing out the ask to many of their current students as well as their employees. Everybody is just stepping up and stepping into that effort.”
In regard to COVID-19 testing for staff, McNeill said the district is working on expansion efforts ahead of the spring semester. She also said WCSD is ramping up contact tracing efforts in conjunction with the county, UNR and the Washoe County Health District.
On Dec. 22, WCSD will hold an orientation for 42 Washoe County employees who will temporarily help the school district with contact tracing efforts.
McNeill said the school district will take contact tracing help for as long as the county is able to provide it, but she was not certain how long the more than three dozen Washoe County employees will be assisting the school district.
This Is Reno reached out to the county to learn more about how long its staff may be assisting in contact tracing for the district but did not receive a response prior to publication of this story, which may be updated if and when a response is received.
The Washoe County Health District has struggled for several months to keep up with testing demand and to return results in a timely manner and, in November, suspended testing for asymptomatic people.
In addition to the district’s three priorities surrounding COVID-19 mitigation and response efforts, McNeill briefly discussed the vaccination of WCSD staff with recently delivered coronavirus vaccines from the biotech company Pfizer.
While most school staff—excepting school police and school nurses—are not prioritized to be in the first-round tier of vaccinations, they are expected to be at the top of the tier 2 vaccination list. However, McNeill said she was unable to answer media questions concerning who among the staff population would be prioritized for vaccination, as well as whether or not teachers would be mandated to take the vaccine. She said this information would become available following a meeting with the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services and a meeting with the Nevada DOE—which took place later Friday afternoon. The number and order of vaccinations for teachers, she added, will depend upon vaccine availability.
All kids can still get free food over winter break
Free meals for all kids under 18, regardless of enrollment in the district, will continue through the school year. There are currently 10 pickup sites for free breakfasts and lunches. The district is able to offer this program because of a waiver issued by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees school meal programs. It will continue through the holiday break, though with limited distribution sites.
Guardians of children 18 or younger need only fill out an order form by every Monday at noon to pick up meals.
