Regent attacks unequal salaries

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 1999 | 9:59 a.m.

"I don't want this to become a north-south thing, but why don't we spend the same dollars on a new professor at UNLV that we do at UNR?" Sisolak asked Tuesday during a meeting of the Legislature's Committee to Study the Funding of Higher Education.

He noted new faculty members at UNR this coming year will get $60,953, compared with $56,511 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Community College of Southern Nevada faculty get $42,878, about $5,000 a year less than faculty members at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno and Western Nevada Community College in Carson City.

"There is an inherent inequality here, and it perpetuates itself," Sisolak said.

Sisolak first started speaking out against north-south funding inequities during the 1999 legislative session. He complained that UNLV students get $3,400 less in state support than students at UNR.

Legislators put more money into southern Nevada colleges. They also set aside $150,000 for an independent study on the reasons for the inequity and how it can be resolved.

During the Tuesday meeting, members chose three consultants as their top choices to do the funding study.

Drawing the top scores was Paul Brinkman, associate vice president for budget and planning at the University of Utah.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, was authorized to offer a contract to Brinkman or the others by Dec. 15.

Raggio said that all three consultants are qualified and that a quick hiring was needed.

He agreed the consultant should investigate reasons why an inequity exists in beginning salaries for faculty members.

Larry Eardley, budget director for the University and Community College System of Nevada, said the salary differences are caused by a formula that bases beginning salaries in part on the average salaries paid by the college.

He added that salaries were equalized by budget actions of the Legislature in 1993.

But that year, UNLV decided against giving merit pay increases to its faculty and instead put the money into a fund to hire more faculty members.