Treasurer leaves residency question off of Millennium Scholarship letters

Wednesday, July 30, 2003 | 11:25 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- State Treasurer Brian Krolicki says he will be sending out more than 8,000 letters this week to high school graduates who qualify for Millennium Scholarship, but he won't be asking if they are legal residents of the United States.

Krolicki had said in June that new recipients of the $10,000 scholarship would be asked about their residency to comply with a 1996 federal law that states must offer in-state tuition to out-of-state residents if they offer in-state rates to undocumented aliens.

Nevada students who graduated with a B average since 2000 are eligible for Millennium Scholarships.

Instead the letters to scholarship winners will include a paragraph that says, "This award is contingent upon the Board of Regents' certification of your eligibility consistent with applicable laws."

In effect, Krolicki has left it up to the University and Community College System of Nevada to determine if a scholarship should be withheld. He said Tuesday it is not up to him to make policy. It's the job of the Nevada Legislature or the university to decide if the students qualify, he said.

The letters from Krolicki usually are sent in early July but the question of residency held up the mailing.

Chancellor Jane Nichols said this morning that the qualifications for the Millennium Scholarship clearly specify graduating from a Nevada school is required and she doesn't think many out-of-state students could qualify. She added that the issue needs to be taken up in the 2005 Legislature.

University Regent Steve Sisolak said he thought the issue had been resolved by attorneys for the state and university that a box would be included on the notification letter to check for a citizen or non-citizen.

This issue, he said, is up to the Legislature since it created the Millennium Scholarship and decides eligibility. The university, he said, is just administering the scholarship.

Whatever the outcome, Sisolak said he wants to make sure that anybody who got a scholarship and who may not be a U.S. citizen continues to get the grant, which totals $10,000 for four years.

Nobody knows whether this involves a small number of students or hundreds, he said.

Sisolak, of Las Vegas, said he is not advocating one stance or another but it could come up at the board of regents meeting in August.

Krolicki asked Attorney General Brian Sandoval for a legal opinion on how he should proceed, such as putting a box for students to indicate whether they are citizens or non-residents.

But the treasurer said he has not received the legal advice and he needed to get the letters out to the potential students.

"I don't make policy," he said.

Brooke Nielsen, assistant general counsel for the University and Community College System of Nevada, said the federal law says that you cannot grant a benefit to an illegal alien if you don't give it to residents of other states. But nothing submitted to the university system identifies whether the students are not citizens of the United States.

"We're waiting for the attorney general's analysis," whether this federal law applies, Nielsen said.

Tom Sargent, spokesman for Sandoval, said some of the issues presented "are not so simple." He said "It's hard to predict" when the legal opinion would be ready.