Handful of CCSN staffers nab huge pay hikes

Jeffrey Libby

Saturday, Sept. 9, 2000 | 2:56 a.m.

A handful of support staffers at the Community College of Southern Nevada earned pay raises ranging from 39 percent to 152 percent over a roughly five-year period, while most faculty and staff members eked out average annual raises of 2.5 percent, according to records obtained by the Sun.

Many of those astronomical raises, which occurred between 1994 and July 2000, accompanied promotions that were awarded without advertising for other qualified applicants -- so-called "emergency hires."

With a report on ongoing investigations into community college management practices released Friday by Jane Nichols, interim chancellor of the state system of higher education, the news came as little surprise to some state officials.

But CCSN officials defend the raises, citing increased workloads, increased responsibilities and the pressures of market competition.

"I believe something besides merit is at work," Regent Tom Kirkpatrick said last week. "It bears deeper investigation. We need the best quality people we can get if we're going to serve the people of the community like we're supposed to, and we can't do that with favoritism."

State Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, a political science professor at UNLV, called the informal procedure for promoting support staff inappropriate. She said such practices could compromise an institution's ability to abide by state affirmative action laws. She also criticized the size of the raises.

"It's very unfair when you consider that a handful of people are getting raises at a time when other state employees, faculty and staff have gotten very little up until last year," Titus said.

But despite 17 documented instances of support staff and faculty receiving significantly higher-than-average raises, frequently without having to compete against outside applicants, former CCSN President Richard Moore said that taxpayers are getting "a hell of a deal."

Moore called the raises -- ranging from 39 percent to 152 percent over a roughly five-year period -- part of an efficient, innovative response to staggering growth in student enrollment.

"When you're growing 15 to 30 percent a year, you will do some emergency hires during the year. That's appropriate with any organization growing 15 to 30 percent a year," said Moore, who headed CCSN from 1994 until January, when he accepted a post as president of the proposed state college in Henderson.

"We had the least amount of state funding per (full-time equivalents) of any institution of the state. From my viewpoint, we ran the most efficient institution in the state," Moore said Wednesday.

The student population at CCSN more than doubled between 1995 and 1999, growing from 16,700 to 35,400. Between 1997 and 2000, professional support staff increased just 22 percent, from 103 to 126 employees. It was inevitable, Moore said, that administrators would have to take on additional responsibilities.

The community college system does not have figures for support staff prior to 1997.

Allen Ruter, vice president of administration and finance at CCSN, said emergency hires are always followed up by a formal search process with outside applicants as dictated by school policy. Emergency hires are considered temporary assignments, not guaranteed promotions, Ruter said.

But documented salary histories provided by the human resources department of CCSN show that in several cases emergency hires were not followed directly by searches.

Over a period of less than five years, Thomas Brown, serving now as interim vice president of student services, received four promotions and $47,500 in raises without competing against other applicants. Brown makes $115,000 a year, up from the $72,500 he earned in 1995 as associate vice president of human resources.

In another instance, Diana Cox increased her salary 152 percent over a period of four years. Starting as a personnel technician at $27,823.92 in 1996, Cox now makes $70,000 as the director of human resources.

Attempts to reach Brown and Cox for comment were unsuccessful.

Another CCSN administrator, Beth Reykers, a former grant writer for the state Department of Education, was an "emergency hire" as a special projects manager in 1995, earning $36,866. She was promoted twice and received $11,134 in raises over the next 18-month period before a formal search panel appointed her assistant dean of work force development in 1996.

Since that time, Reykers has been promoted two more times without having to compete for the new jobs. She now earns $88,200 as executive director of work force and grant development. Over 5 1/2 years her salary has increased 139 percent.

"The people around here, we earn our money. It's not a 40-hour work week with breaks for lunch. I can't remember the last time I ate lunch," Reykers said this week. "You know that adage, 'no good deed goes unpunished?' When someone says one person is doing the job of two people -- well, that was Dr. Moore's management style."

Reykers also pointed out that in the past year alone she has won $12 million in grants for the community college. The college earned closer to $1 million in grants when she started as a grant writer in 1995, Reykers said.

Interim college president Robert Silverman defended Reyker's increases in salary for that reason, saying that an employee like her is bound to receive job offers and must be paid competitive wages. He said $88,200 is a competitive wage for her position.

"We try to be fair to the employees and also to protect the college and to keep from suffering from a constant drain of people leaving campus," Silverman said.

Employees regularly leave the community college for the $5,000 to $10,000 more in salary that high-technology companies are able to pay, Silverman said.

Regent Steve Sisolak was reluctant to criticize the promotion practices of CCSN before seeing more data, but he said inconsistencies in pay raises could cause serious problems.

"It creates a huge morale problem," Sisolak said, referring to situations where instructors and staff in similar positions earned significantly different salaries. "Not only is it a waste of taxpayer dollars, but it creates animosity."

Reykers called the job of community college administrators a balancing act.

"We're caught between the requirements of business and the rules and regulations of a public institution. We need to have the ability to respond to the needs of the community, but how do we balance the needs of the welfare client, the student and the job-seeker? How do we balance the personal and eminent needs of the client with the politics and culture of being a public entity?"

Nichols declined to comment specifically on the documents obtained by the Sun, saying she hoped to gain further input from faculty and staff as they return to campus this week.