By Rocio Hernandez — Are schools getting tax money from Nevada’s cannabis industry? It’s a question that’s come up again and again since 2016 when Nevada voted to legalize recreational marijuana in the state — in part on the promise to raise school funding.
The short answer: Yes, Nevada schools are benefiting from the cannabis taxes.
But the revenue generated isn’t enough to move the needle much for state K-12 education funding.
There are two excise taxes placed on the sale of recreational marijuana: a 15 percent wholesale tax, included in the original ballot question and primarily paid by marijuana businesses, and a 10 percent retail tax added by the Legislature in 2017 that is primarily paid by consumers.
Democratic lawmakers in 2017 moved to place the revenue from the retail tax into the state’s rainy day fund — a move (reversed two years later) that still leads to a steady stream of questions and accusations that cannabis tax dollars aren’t going to education.
Today, all proceeds from the retail tax and the majority of proceeds from the wholesale tax (portions of which fund the Cannabis Compliance Board and local governments’ costs) are among the roughly 20 revenue sources that make up the state education fund, which funds Nevada’s public schools.
A new report by the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities found that since 2018, the two cannabis taxes have raised nearly $716 million in K-12 education funding. Last year alone, the taxes brought in $108 million for schools.
“The tax is dedicated to the state education fund by statute, and the state has complied with that, and the Legislature is budgeted that way as such,” said the report’s author, Mark Krmpotic, the Guinn Center’s interim director of economic and fiscal policy. “That is unequivocal at this point, and has been that case for several years.”
Anna Colquitt, the Guinn Center’s director of education policy, estimates that the seven years of tax revenue equals out to roughly $1,500 per student.
Although it seems like a big number, the cannabis tax revenue is a drop in the bucket, making up about 2 percent of compared to the $12.9 billion budgeted for K-12 education for next two years, which includes $11.5 billion for the state’s funding formula for K-12 education.
Colquitt and Krmpotic said that while cannabis taxes are an important piece of how Nevada funds K-12 education, the roughly $225 per pupil it brought in last year isn’t enough to close the $4,000 gap between the state’s per-pupil funding and the national average.
“It was never going to solve all of our problems in education,” Colquitt said. “I think maybe that was the perception, but that wasn’t rooted in any substantial fact.”
Krmpotic noted that total revenue from Nevada’s cannabis taxes is declining — a trend he’s seen in other states.
It comes as other funding streams for Nevada K-12 education, such as the sales tax and room tax, have also taken a hit.
“As we’re seeing decreases in other areas as well, if that’s an additional area of decreased funding when we’re trying to go in the upwards direction, it’s alarming,” Colquitt said.
— This story is used with permission of The Nevada Independent. Go here for updates to this and other Nevada Independent stories.
