Nevada’s largest teachers’ union, the Clark County Education Association, wants state lawmakers to restructure the tax incentives for data centers as part of an effort to generate more money for K-12 public schools.
Last week, the group unveiled what they called an eight-point plan to reshape the public’s perspective of the facilities. At the heart of the proposal, the union is calling for the end of the 2.6% local school support sales tax (LSST) abatement for data centers. According to the union, the move could generate as much as $500 million a year for schools statewide.
CCEA Executive Director John Vellardita told KNPR News the opportunity is too good to deny.
"Can you really just say no?" he asked. "Can you really just say 'moratorium,' and you're still stuck with what you got in an industry that's not going away, that's going to expand? Or do you say, 'Is there some opportunity to engage them at a moment where nobody else is around?' Redefining the relationship — that's what we're trying to do here."
Vellardita says his office is already working with state lawmakers to add the proposal to the 2027 legislative agenda. However, buy-in would likely rely on a bipartisan effort because all tax and spending bills must pass with two-thirds support from lawmakers. That could be a tough sell, given recent student achievement data shows most students in the state continue to struggle in math and English Language Arts. That's despite dramatic reforms and funding increases over the last decade.
For Vellardita, it's further proof that the state is not doing enough to support schools and students.
"If you don't have the resources, if you don't have the teachers, if you don't have the support staff, if you don't have the other licensed professionals, if you don't have the proper facilities, everything that's needed for kids' education, you're just going to repeat the same thing," he said. "So this argument that we've given you a lot of money and we still have the same results, I would challenge that with the facts. You have not given a lot of money, and that's why we have the same results."
The proposal comes just weeks before voters cast ballots in the 2026 midterm election. According to polling, a majority of Nevada voters (58.6%) oppose building data centers in or near their community, and in recent weeks the debate over the continued use of tax abatements for data center development and construction has reached a fever pitch — that's especially true for this year's gubernatorial race. According to analysis by The Nevada Independent, four of the five ads currently running that mention data centers are in the governor's race.
According to Vellardita, it was one of the main reasons for unveiling the plan now.
"We're trying to separate ourselves from those that are just, in an opportunistic way, trying to take advantage of the anger, the frustration, the distrust that the community — that people — have of this industry, for political purposes," he said. "I'm against them."
Vellardita specifically took issue with Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, the Democratic Nominee for Governor who in 2015 helped pass SB170, the state law that created the abatements.
When asked if that meant the union was trying to influence the election in favor of Republican incumbent Governor Joe Lombardo, Vellardita said yes.
"Does that tip the scale [for Lombardo]? I can't see how it doesn't tip the scale."
In response to Vellardita’s remarks, the Ford Campaign issued a written statement.
“As a former public school teacher, Aaron Ford knows firsthand the importance of prioritizing Nevadans’ welfare in allocating our state resources. That’s why Ford will stop all new tax breaks for data centers, block them from raising Nevadans’ costs, and force them to provide their own water and electricity – unlike Joe Lombardo, who gave data centers $240 million in tax cuts. Ford’s plan will bring more money to Nevada’s coffers for the state to spend on making our schools among the best in the nation.”
CCEA is not the only teachers’ union in town. The Nevada State Education Association — which largely represents educators outside Clark County — has a very different take on the proposal.
"It's basically this weird binary choice of 'if you want more funding, we have to keep building data centers,'" said Alexander Marks, NSEA's deputy executive director of field and communications. "I think that's a false choice, and that was the choice that was essentially offered. In my opinion, this is a pro-data center policy."
Instead, NSEA has long maintained that lawmakers should work to fully implement the funding plan submitted by the legislatively created Commission on School Funding in 2022. Marks said the plan would put state support for schools on a much more solid footing, in line with the national average.
"We don't need to make our schools dependent on whichever subsidized industry just happens to be politically fashionable this year," Marks added. "A couple of years ago it was stadiums, and then it was studios. That's why now we're saying, schools over servers, right?"
