Accreditation team: UNLV shorted on funds

Valerie Miller

Monday, May 1, 2000 | 11:04 a.m.

UNLV does not get its fair share of money from the state, an accreditation evaluation team in town for the university's reaccreditation has found.

The 15-member team charged with making recommendations on UNLV to the Northwest Commission on Accreditation cited as its number one concern the inadequate state funding for UNLV.

"Our first concern is funding," team chairman and University of Montana President George Dennison said. "The funding mechanism (used by the state) has become obsolete. As a result, resources available cannot address critical infrastructure and library problems."

UNLV President Carol Harter said the committee's finding bolsters a point she has been making for years.

"What they are saying is that the funding is not adequate, that it is not equitable," Harter said. "I hope that the Legislature realizes that this does effectively validate what we and the Board of Regents have been saying."

Dennison's comments were met with low murmurs of "Thank you, George" in the appreciative crowd of mostly UNLV administrators, faculty and staff gathered on campus for the Friday announcement.

Dennison said his team also commended UNLV for maintaining an attractive campus for the school despite inadequate state support. And he praised the work done by Harter and the regents to get equal funding from the state Legislature.

"The university and the Board of Regents should work closely with the state and use the funds where they are most needed," Dennison said. Improvements are being made, Harter said.

The 1999 Legislature allocated an extra $3.7 million for 1999-2001 to UNLV to begin to close a funding gap between UNLV and the University of Nevada, Reno. Lawmakers have pledged to continue to work on the equity issue in the 2001 session. The regents also vowed in 1998 to address the inequities.

"That's beginning to happen," Harter said.

Based on the schools' enrollment figures and operating budget for general programs, UNR received $3,160 more per full-time equivalent student than UNLV in 1998-99. In the current school year that disparity is $3,024.

A consultant hired by the regents found a disparity between the schools of $534 per student once the age of buildings and other fixed costs were taken into account.

The accreditation team also commended UNLV for achieving its goal of becoming more student-focused and for trying to address the needs of students and the surrounding community, Dennison said.

The university was further commended for "an impressive record of recruiting, mentoring and maintaining highly qualified new faculty and staff," Dennison said.

The praise for UNLV's faculty and staff was an added boost after a report released late last year said the starting salaries for new faculty at UNLV and Community College of Southern Nevada lag behind their counterparts in Northern Nevada.

The findings of the salary report, presented to a state legislative committee last year, added more fuel to the claim of unequal funding between the north and the south.

The accreditation team's other concerns involve communication, given UNLV's rapid growth, and the school's lack of planning history, especially linking different areas of enrollment and budgeting.

"We have a very effective new planning process," Harter said after hearing the report. "When I came here five years ago, we did not even have a planning process. But I think their point is that it has to reach the faculty."

Harter said she might consider starting a weekly in-house newspaper to help encourage better communication.

Overall, Harter said, she was "not surprised" by any of the evaluation team's findings and remained confident that UNLV would receive its reaffirmation of accreditation in June from the Northwest Association of Schools after the association receives the team's recommendations.