Nevada education officials ask for new deputy, HR staff and budget analyst to manage people-centered funding

At a Joint Subcommittee on K‑12 and Higher Education CIP meeting in Carson City, Deputy Superintendent Megan Peterson asked lawmakers to approve a deputy administrator position, two human resources technicians and a budget analyst to help run the Department of Education's Office of the Superintendent.

Peterson said the Office of the Superintendent houses the cabinet-level operating budget, supports the State Board of Education and the Commission on School Funding, and helps implement programs such as the Statewide Improvement Plan for Pupils. She told the panel the request reflects day-to-day capacity shortfalls and high turnover: "the average tenure of the staff in my division is just 2 years." The division she oversees has 42 staff and three directors; Peterson said the new deputy would supervise the two HR staff and take routine administrative work off her desk.

Peterson told the committee the new budget analyst would be placed in the Office of People Centered Funding and would support modeling and day-to-day management of payments under the People Centered Funding Plan. "When we introduced the people centered funding plan, we brought in an additional almost $3,000,000,000 in locally raised revenues that we have to manage on a day to day basis," she said, adding the office now relies on contracted subject‑matter experts for parts of that work.

Committee members pressed for details about how the positions would reduce reliance on contractors and how reporting lines would work if HR positions were housed in the superintendent's office rather than a centralized support account. Peterson said the budget analyst would allow the department to bring some work (for example, the Nevada Cost of Education Index and other tax‑law modeling) in house, while the department would still contract for some out‑of‑state subject matter expertise, such as competency‑based learning best practices.

Committee members asked whether the HR roles would duplicate services provided by the Division of Human Resource Management (DHRM). Peterson said the new roles are intended to be complementary: DHRM would continue to post recruitments and validate applicants, while the department positions would be a single internal point of contact to coordinate recruitments, standardize interview processes and provide department‑specific onboarding.

Peterson said the combination of the three requested positions is intended to improve responsiveness to districts and internal staff and to reduce bottlenecks that now delay programmatic work. She also said the department has been working with DHRM for years on the issue and that DHRM itself has turnover that complicates communication.

The subcommittee did not take action during the hearing; members asked for additional detail on costs and indirect charging and indicated they would review the requests as part of the budget deliberations.