Top regent demands equity in college funding

Thursday, Feb. 25, 1999 | 11:31 a.m.

The head of the University Board of Regents said this morning the 1999 Legislature must be asked to revise the university funding formula to make it fairer to UNLV and the Community College of Southern Nevada.

Chairwoman Jill Derby of Gardnerville said regents must seek an independent study of the state formula that determines how funds are distributed to Nevada's colleges and universities.

"We must develop new formulas now, not a month from now," Derby told an overflow crowd as the regents began a two-day meeting at the Community College of Southern Nevada Charleston Campus.

The funding formula, put into place in 1986, has come under fire the past several weeks after a number of regents from Southern Nevada launched a campaign to change it, saying it discriminates against the south.

UNLV President Carol Harter was expected to show the regents statistics claiming a difference of $2,871 per full-time equivalent student. Officials at the University of Nevada, Reno recently conceded there is a difference, but maintain it is more like $482.

At the current rate, if nothing is done to change the funding formula, Harter planned to tell regents, the gap between the north and south will exceed $5,300 per student by 2021.

Using regents' budget figures, she also planned to argue that the south receives 45.2 percent of the higher education budget but generates 61.1 percent of the enrollment.

Another discrepancy expected to be an issue is space.

The University of Nevada, Reno has 283.84 square feet per student, while UNLV has 143.05 square feet, Harter was expected to tell regents.

Before the tension-packed meeting began today, the first to formally address the issue, Derby warned there would be "no jeering, no cheering."

Anticipating the overflow crowd, more than 100 extra seats and several TV monitors were set up outside the auditorium in the lobby of the administration building.

"We as a board of regents are at an important crossroads," Derby said. "It's no secret this issue has been around several years. But it is also no secret that it has not been resolved."

The regents, she added, are on a course "from which there will be no turning back."

Regent Mark Alden of Las Vegas was confident on Wednesday that the funding discrepancy that divides the north and the south will be resolved this year, and not by robbing the north to finance the south.

The Las Vegas regent said he thinks when the Nevada Economic Forum meets in May, the panel of financial experts who have the final say on how much money the state will have to spend should find enough money available to put the controversy to rest.

"Even though it might be resolved in May, we still want to address it," he said today. "We are still going to push it."

Regardless of how the funding controversy is resolved, Alden said he thinks UNLV will have to put its plans for a dental school on hold for a while.

He said the regents need to re-evaluate their priority list of 17 items. The dental school is No. 17 on the list.

Receiving top priority are funds for the new library and law school at UNLV.

"Those two items are pretty untouchable. But everything else, 3 through 17, is up for review," Alden said.