LAS VEGAS – In the spring of 2012 the Clark County, Nevada school district was suffering under the weight of a $64 million budget deficit, according to various news reports.

Approximately 400 layoff notices were sent to employees as part of a plan to eliminate more than 1,000 teaching positions.

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But in the following school year, the Las Vegas-based district recorded millions of dollars of travel expenses, for pricey hotels, air travel, car rentals and other unnecessary costs.

The Clark County district spent $1.17 million on hotel lodging in 2013-14, according to documents obtained from the school through a public information request. Another $922,388 was spent on air travel and related expenses, while $146,160 was spent on rental cars.

The district’s total for travel-related spending was $2.28 million for 2013-14 alone. Who knows how much was spent in other school years, when budgets were being cut due to the recession and children were being short-changed on their education?

“I just think there’s a huge disconnect between school officials saying they don’t have enough money, then spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on hotels and rental cars and to fly around the country,” said Victor Joecks, executive vice president of the Nevada Policy Research Institute. “It’s about prioritizing. Private businesses have to do it all the time, but so often that same incentive is not there for government employees.”

Public school travel costs are typically related to professional development conferences, which often take place in expensive hotels, frequently in popular tourist destinations. A few expenditures can be traced to student trips, which are sometimes paid for with private dollars but purchased through the district.

A percentage of travel costs are typically covered by federal grants, and school officials have a tendency to say that the spending was harmless, because it wasn’t district money.

But tax dollars are tax dollars. If the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. are going to send that sort of money to local schools, shouldn’t schools be able to use it to address their most pressing student needs, particularly in years when money is tight?

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Some critics also note that with modern technology, networking and conferencing are possible without extensive travel. Why aren’t more of these professionals linking up electronically at a fraction of the cost?

The Clark County school district registered a remarkable 2,379 transactions with 502 different hotels during fiscal year 2014. There were also 34 transactions with “Hawaiian Group Sales” totaling $19,954.

Twenty-two different hotels in various cities did at least five figures worth of business with the district that year.

The top 10 were the Holiday Inn Reno ($42,301); the Boston Park Plaza Hotel ($37,690); the Marriott in Cambridge, Massachusetts ($34,013); the Renaissance in Paris, France ($32,224); the Doubletree in San Diego ($28.804); the John Ascuagas Nugget in Sparks, Nevada ($28,494); the MGM Grand in Las Vegas ($26,980); the Fairfield Inn in Kansas City ($25,365); the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles ($21,854); and the Hilton in New Orleans ($19,238).

Some of the trips can only be described as extravagant.

For instance, the district spent $15,038 at the Boston Park Plaza on May 12, 2014. Another $17,043 was spent at the same establishment just a few weeks later, on May 27.

The district spent a whopping $28,598 at the Doubletree in San Diego on Aug. 1 & 2, 2014.

Another $25,365 was spent at the Fairfield Inn in Kansas City. The first transaction was on April 24, 2014 while the others came between June 9-21.

A total of $16,252 was spent at the Holiday Inn Reno between May 20-24, 2014. The district spent $20,092 at the MGM Grand (presumably the one in Las Vegas) on Nov. 15, 2013.

Those are just a few examples of the many pricey excursions paid for through school district accounts.

The Clark County district also made 2,329 transactions with 16 airlines in 2013-14. The vast majority of the business was done with Southwest Airlines, which collected $671,713 from the district.

The district also had 707 transactions with rental car companies, with the bulk of the business ($123,217) going to Hertz Rent-A-Car.