Dental school funding still sore subject for lawmakers

Friday, April 14, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Records from the 1999 Legislature show that the driving force behind the UNLV dental school said the project would not need state money but could be funded from other sources of revenue.

A review of minutes of meetings of legislative appropriations committees back up comments made last week by two regents of the University and Community College System of Nevada, who quoted Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, as saying the school could be run without state money.

The issue arose at a meeting of the Board of Regents last week when UNLV President Carol Harter outlined plans to ask the 2001 Legislature for $11.4 million in state money to open the school to students.

Regents Tom Kirkpatrick and David Phillips, both of Las Vegas, said they were led by Rawson to believe that there would not be any state support needed for the start of the dental school.

"Rawson told us he would not come back for money. He's got to make good his promise," Phillips said.

But Harter said no public school in the nation runs a dental school without state support. She said the Nevada school would be one of the "least reliant" on state money.

Rawson, when asked Thursday about the legislative minutes, said he was talking about financing the building and getting the program started from other sources of revenue. He said he expected the state to pick up the student funding formula when the school opened.

He said it is just like any other program, whether it be a new law school or another program. The state pays the cost for the student.

When questioned about Rawson's statement, Harter said she is running the school, not Rawson.

But it was Rawson, a dentist, who conceived the plan for a dental school, set up the financing and guided the bill through the Legislature to final passage.

Several times during the committee meetings, Rawson talked about the funding coming from treating Medicaid patients, members of the Culinary Union, private patients and other sources.

On May 19, 1999, in an Assembly Ways and Means Committee hearing, Rawson was asked by Majority Leader Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, if the program would be "a burden on the (state) general fund."

According to the minutes, Rawson replied it would not be a burden "and no new general fund money would be necessary to run the program."

Rawson never mentioned seeking support from the state's general fund, the minutes show.

Perkins said Thursday he was surprised at the $11.4 million request from the university. He did recall questioning Rawson and the statement that the general fund would not be used.

Perkins predicted it will be an issue at the 2001 Legislature session, but he said he is in an awkward position because he is going to push for state money to start the four-year college in Henderson.

Rawson, calling it an "election issue," said Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, has promised to bring it up in the campaign in an effort to unseat him in November.

At the May 19, 1999, Ways and Means Committee meeting, Rawson, according to the minutes, said Medicaid was one of the funding sources, but it could not do it all.

The tuition for the school would equal nearly $1 million. The Culinary Union is willing to sign a contract to treat its members, which total more than 100,000. There were also specialists in the program who would bring in fees.

Rawson said that one could argue the state has a responsibility to build higher education programs, but the (dental) program is unusual.

The school is different, he said, because it is programmed with a network of treatment facilities, which would go in before the dental school itself is finished. The treatment network would really support the dental school.

Rawson said he was confident the revenues the school and treatment centers developed would carry the project.

The minutes of the May 11, 1999, meeting of the Senate-Assembly joint subcommittee on Human Resources, quotes Rawson as saying the school would suffer a small deficit in the third year of operations, but by the fourth year, it "would be back in a positive cash flow mode and there would be sufficient cash flow with reserves to carry the program."

Rawson was chairman of that subcommittee.