Nevada: Business leaders like shrinking government, teachers scoff at donation scheme

Business leaders applauded Gov. Jim Gibbons’ call for smaller government, but others said he should have focused on ways to save schools in his State of the State speech tonight.

Gibbons proposed an Education Gift Certificate so people could send a check to a nonprofit group that would use the money for teacher salaries.

“What are we now, a charity case?” asked Ken Buhrmann, president of the 3,500-member Washoe County Education Association. “Quite frankly, it’s insulting.”

Buhrmann said teachers were already scared over their jobs and paychecks and his speech “scared them even more. This man is not our friend.”


“There was a lot of empty rhetoric, very few specifics and a lot of blaming,” he said.
“It is a mantra for give me your vote.”