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Tuesday, April 5, 2011 | 5:30 p.m.
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Read 'em and weep (or not) at right, with chancellor cover memo and details.
Higher ed system responds to lawmakers, details impact of budget cuts
Discussion: 19 comments so far...
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This is just devastating to the very idea of a university in Las Vegas. In the College of Liberal Arts alone they are killing Women's Studies and then firing every untenured professor in Anthropology, Philosophy and Sociology. What professor would want to come here? What student would enroll here if they could get accepted elsewhere?
And this is not even necessary at the end of the day. We could tax mining at something greater than 0.6%. We could have the big box stores pay comparable taxes to those they pay in every surrounding state, would Target or Best Buy really be unprofitable here if they had to pay the same sort of taxes they do in Utah, Arizona or California? There are options other than firing teachers or professors. But instead we're eating our seed corn.
Our legislators owe us a better solution than this. We all deserve better than this.
$162 million is a lot of money to cut, but put it into perspective with the $3.2 billion they spent this biennium and the amount of money they'll raise through tuition increases and the real decline in spending won't be significant at all.
with the amount of programs cut, they won't make up the money in tuition hikes.
I'm sending my NV earned money to Florida to pay for my degree since UNLV cut it. And I'm not the only teacher seeking a degree with an out of state university.
My son graduates and will be attending an out of state university because UNLV dropped his program. So are most of his friends. And with the Western Undergraduate Exchange program, they can get in state tuition or reduced rates with good GPAs.
Wouldn't you leave?
If the Sandoval budget goes through, it will result in elimination of over 500 positions at UNR and UNLV. Thousands of students will not be able to get the courses they want.
No attention should be paid to Patrick Gibbons, an ideologue with the rightwing Nevada Policy Research Institute, which stubbornly refuses to reveal its funding sources.
How many of those that leave to go to college will come back to a state that devalues education as much as Nevada? How many businesses will move to a state that has the worst education system in the nation? The city of Rio Rancho, New Mexico got INTEL to move a chip making plant to their city by creating a new school district. INTEL built a state of the art high school with part of the bonds issued by the city to help defer the cost of building the new plant. Low taxes have really attracted new business. A major story yesterday was that a distribution center with 50, yes 50, jobs was going to move to Nevada. That will really make a dent in the 130000 unemployed in Clark County. Do you all realize that every job lost result in the loss of other jobs? Last one out, please turn out the lights.
Did anyone notice that in UNLV's hasty effort to prepare the required cuts that they are including rather inexpensive programs that definitely should not be eliminated? I noticed at least one program on the cut list that has a cost/FTE that is roughly one-fifth of the University's general fund appropriation from the state.
Now I'm all for trimming the fat and cutting programs that are not worth the money, but please be smart and not cut programs that actually generate a profit.
Is the administration simply writing the names of all the programs on the wall and throwing darts at it to determine which ones to cut? I think they need to get some statisticians and analysts on the program elimination committee and evaluate this with objective measures of cost, revenue, and the relative impact on faculty, students, taxpayers, and the community at large.
Clearly they have not done that.
Here are the cost/FTE details of the programs being cut at UNLV:
Program/ (Cost FY 12)/ FTE/ (Cost/FTE)/ (% of Avg)
Athletic Training/ $322,000/ 60.5/ $5,322/ 72%
Nuclear Medicine/ $208,000/ 36.5/ $5,699/ 77%
Nutrition/ $351,300/ 126/ $2,788/ 38%
Health Promotion/ $257,269/ 20.4/ $12,611/ 170%
Informatics/ $547,000/ 66/ $8,288/ 111%
Construction Management/ $451,000/ 60.4/ $7,467/ 100%
Photography/ $236,000/ 26.7/ $8,839/ 119%
Gerontology/ $80,576/ 3.3/ $24,417/ 328%
Sr. Adult Theatre/ $120,000/ 2.1/ $57,143/ 769%
Printmaking/ $121,500/ 1/ $121,500/ 1634%
Rec Sports Mgt/ $539,000/ 150.3/ $3,586/ 48%
Women's Studies/ $512,000/ 20.7/ $24,734/ 333%
Philosophy/ $1,070,000/ 72/ $14,861/ 200%
Professional Writing/ $349,000/ 1/ $349,000/ 4695%
BS in Social Work/ $436,500/ 155.3/ $2,811/ 38%
Environmental Program/ $525,000/ 84.7/ $6,198/ 83%
EDL to SEPA/ $762,000/ 146/ $5,219/ 70%
FY 11 General Fund Support from State/FTE $7,434
According to these figures, Nutrition, Social Work, and Recreational Sports Management all cost much less than the university average and at least 2 of them (Nutrition and Social Work) have an enormous positive impact on the community. Why on earth would you even consider cutting those programs? It just doesn't make any sense unless the administrators were simply looking for X amount of dollars to cut and chose those programs because the total savings amounts were what they needed. This really is outrageous and as a taxpayer I want them to do a much better job than this.
as a university worker in Alberta, Canada we went through this the past two years. The Gov. took away 125 million in budget money we were faced with huge layoffs. So we (union) went ahead with early retirement plans and the wonderful furlough days and reduced hours. We took 5 days furlough, plus unpaid stat holidays (cost per pay check $390.00 before taxes) then we were offered reduced hours (offered :-)) i went from 40 hours to 35 dosen't sound to bad (that cost me $990.00 per check) so yes we took hits in the pocket book but we only had 45 layoffs from the projected 700 and we are looking at no furlough days required this year, also unneccesary projects and improvements were out on hold until things get better.
in the end we all have jobs and in IT we are moving to Gmail on campus removing all the single department mail servers and saving 3 million in hardware upgrades there are savings out there and yes it does hurt for some
oh one other thing Alberta is Canada's fastest growing economy with nothing but oil and the Gov still managed to screw it up
The information requested by the Legislature has been provided. I am still trying to absorb the information in the documents.
There appears to be no discussion of demographics in the state over the next couple of decades (I may have missed it). Granted this is due to the questions asked by LCB, but I think it is problematic to assess cuts, with long-term impacts, in the absence of this type of information. Again, it could be in the documents and I may have missed it.
Fellow Nevadans:
Please support education lest we create an army of angry and ignorant propagandists such as Patrick R. Gibbons who just don't have a clue about how critical education is to ordinary Nevadans and whose sole mission in life is to destroy the future of this state! One is more than enough!
What is most interesting about this whole thing is that despite the rhetoric that the world is going to end if these cuts are made, I have yet to hear any proposal for horizontal pay cuts on all employees from the top to the bottom. Could we keep all of these so-called essential programs open, and prevent the termination of any employees if every single person associated with higher ed took a 5% pay cut, and contributed more to their heath and benefits? If the answer is yes, then it would seem that all of this prophetic doom-and-gloom is merely a side-show to protect someone's wallet. The fact that this chattering class has already made sure that others (terminated employees and students) will bear the brunt of hurt is reprehensible. Of course, this is what happens when one party to an economic transaction is a monopoly.
Also, if we are going to ignore people like Patrick because of who he has worked for, then I think it only fair to also ignore the statements of those who have a vested economic interest in seeing that their pay checks survive intact. Fair?
JudgeN: Everyone is taking a 5% cut already plus benefit cuts. Are you proposing another 5% on top of this cut?
The budget reductions submitted to the Board of Regents destroy at least a generation of careful building in higher education for the future.
If this budget is implemented, our universities will become like the Nevada test site: radioactive for 50 years. No worthy professor or newly graduated Ph.D. in the country in will consider a job in the Nevada system now. And why would they? No contract signed by any university administrator or officer of the state will be looked at as anything but a sad, cynical joke, and not worth the paper it's printed on.
Maybe we should all re-think our position on Yucca Mountain. If this budget is allowed to stand, the only logical future for Nevada will be as a dumping ground for waste.
I have a couple of questions:
What was the decision-making process?
Who what involved?
What criteria/priorities were used?
Shame on Brian Sandogibbons and the Republicans in the legislature. Those Nevadans in the rurals who don't want institutions like Western Nevada and Truckee Meadows terminated need to tell their Republican representatives to stop this or be thrown out next election.
Sad to say that many, if not most, of the people involved in these cuts, voted Sandoval and his people into office. They have heard the news and known about the great disparity with the taxation structure here in Nevada, and have done ZERO for years. I am a teacher, have witnessed this countless times in meetings, lounges, and even online with the news media.
So mining and the casino/resort industries continue to exist in Nevada with minimal taxation. When that changes, we will quit blaming education and civil servants for this an economic crisis that was created by those lawmakers the past 30+ years, who allowed mining, the casino/resort industries to thrive and expand beyond Nevada on the backs of the citizens of Nevada. Shame, Shame, Shame.
Republicans do not need education, science or technology - they are going to teach us how to pray. They will tell you that with 'faith', all needs will be provided and there will be no worry. When that doesn't happen, they will tell you to pray harder, etc. They will prepare you for the 'next world', not this one. Good luck.
Hey Pat,
Didja fall on your head out there at the ranch???
Please... your propaganda is getting so far-fetched,
a greyhound couldn't catch it.
The decline in spending "won't be significant at all"?
You just don't get it, do ya?
You could at LEAST try a little obfuscation!
Wrangler Central must be full of Billy Goats.