And speaking of disasters, I wonder if anyone in the caring business crew - there are thousands of you, I understand - have thought about the state of the lower education system, which the new governor apparently is going to revolutionize by empowering principals and teachers.

One business guy who has is Jeremy Aguero, the Applied Analysis numbers maven who recently prepared a presentation for the lower education types that had some startling facts. Yes, facts.

In nearly every index that matters and that Aguero measured, Nevada is well below the national average. He explored everything from high school completion rate to student-teacher ratio to students expelled as a percentage of enrollment. And I don't have to mention per-pupil expenditures, still more than $1,000 below the national average. Aguero even prepared a chart that shows how Nevada was not far from the national average in 1970 and how the trend lines slowly began to diverge as Nevada flattened out in the mid-'90s as the U.S. kept moving upward.

But what is most revelatory about what Aguero presented to a small group last week is how much money the School District has lost in so-called reversions. This is the kind of term that only legislative wonks and political reporters who have been around too long understand.

If revenues outstrip projections for the education budget, the districts cannot spend those funds. They revert to the general fund and can be spent on other items - including pork for hungry lawmakers. This is the flip side of what happens when projections are not met - the state must make up the difference and supplement the education budget.

Here is what Aguero found:

Since 1979, $616 million dollars in reversions have occurred while only $183 million in appropriations from the state have gone to the education fund. So the net loss to the districts has been $433 million.

Now that number is over almost 30 years and may not seem that formidable once you do the division. But add in Aguero's finding that general fund appropriations for education programs have been declining for two decades and you have to ask the fundamental and rhetorical question he posed in his presentation:

"Are education revenue sources being used to subsidize other state programs?"

To change this practice, though, will require a paradigm shift in the capital. Reversions have long been a source of slop for the 63 hogs that feed at this trough every other year for four months. And many will argue that the districts should make do with what they are due, as real people and real businesses do. You can hear the chorus already, can't you? Some of you will be singing it, won't you?

The reversions this cycle are likely to be huge - there is a $500 million overall budget surplus. So the question is, will some lawmakers, prodded by the education lobby, start asking for the funding mechanism to change so, as Aguero put it, "education programs benefit from excess growth in education revenues"?

I wonder if a lawmaker or two will take up the challenge. High-five, anyone?