Nevada Democrats will not hear education savings accounts bill

CARSON CITY — Senate Democrats will not consider a Republican bill to resurrect education savings accounts, Majority Leader Aaron Ford told reporters Friday.

“No,” the Las Vegas Democrat said when asked if Senate Bill 359, sponsored by Senate Co-Minority Whip Scott Hammond, R-Las Vegas, would get a hearing.

Hammond’s bill, introduced Monday, would appropriate $60 million for the program that Gov. Brian Sandoval included in his budget proposal. It would also cap enrollment in the program at 5 percent of the average daily enrollment of pupils in a school district in any given school year.

Education savings accounts were a Republican priority in 2015, when the GOP controlled both the Senate and the Assembly. The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the law allowing the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for private school, but it said the program cannot be funded from an account reserved for public schools.

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