Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004 | 11:18 a.m.
Nepotism, cronyism and excessive bureaucracy run rampant at the Community College of Southern Nevada and need to be stopped immediately, the college's president of two weeks said Tuesday.
"These problems are pervasive, deep and systemic," Richard Carpenter wrote in a memo to the chancellor Tuesday. "And, while they are certainly solvable, the solutions will not all be popular.
"Without strong support from both the chancellor and the Board of Regents, I don't think anyone could successfully lead the effort to rebuild CCSN from its current state," Carpenter continues. "This is a condition that started to build six to eight years ago, and has been exacerbated by outside control. Moreover, I believe this condition has worsened over several administrations."
Carpenter came to the position on Aug. 1, amid continued controversy over his predecessor's claim to the position, a claim that was not resolved until Monday. Carpenter has more than 30 years of experience in higher education and comes to Nevada after having served as president of the entire Wisconsin Technical College System.
In his state-of-the-college memo to Rogers, which was forwarded almost immediately to the state's Board of Regents and the media, Carpenter lists several areas of concern after just two weeks of observations:
-- Nepotism is a real problem at the college, as personnel records show that there are 154 family relationships among the approximately 2,048 college employees.
Carpenter said in an interview Tuesday that none of these family members have any direct supervisory control over another family member, and that a family connection does not necessarily mean the person was not qualified by the job. But, he said, the high number of relationships does raise a concern because there are no policies in place to make sure individuals are being hired based on their qualifications alone and not because of who they know.
-- The entire human resources department is viewed by many as dysfunctional. Hiring and recruitment policies are outdated, inconsistent and inefficient.
Carpenter said he is considering a hiring freeze until he can get at least some policies in place to avoid future problems, as he fears the current policies open the college up to more lawsuits.
"The only thing I know to do is stop the bus long enough to change the flats," Carpenter said.
-- System policy makes it extremely difficult to fire employees who are doing unsatisfactory work by requiring that employees be given at least one year's notice before the end of each fiscal year in June. That means that if an employee if fired in July, the college has to retain the worker for another 23 months, time when the employee may continue to disrupt the workings of the college.
-- There's no "rhyme or reason" to many of the employee policies, leading to inconsistent pay rates between employees doing the same kind of work, gross mismanagement of release time and stipends and no consistency in the use of titles. Last year, Carpenter says the college granted enough release time to have hired 60-full time faculty.
-- There are too many administrative positions that bog down the entire decision-making process, a leadership structure that "was built and perpetually expanded more around personalities and friendships than around integrated administrative functions."
Carpenter said he wants to flatten the leadership culture of the college in order to allow the entire college to solve problems and make decisions more efficiently, which likely will call for eliminating some positions.
"It's pretty mind-bending," Carpenter said of the current system."We have so many layers, I marvel that decisions can ever get made."
-- There is a lawsuit-happy culture around the college that undermines the entire administrative structure. In his first two weeks, Carpenter said he has been threatened with five grievances, equal-employment complaints or lawsuits.
He said the college, which has a $95.4 million budget, is seen as an "easy mark" because of its inconsistent policies, convoluted administrative structure and its willingness to settle lawsuits, which Carpenter said only opens the college up to more attacks.
-- The college has no modern management system to track real-time data on employee information, academic, administrative or financial data, making it difficult to make decisions that ensure accountability.
-- The college is severely underfunded and lags every other institution in the state in funding.
He also cited micromanagement by the Board of Regents.
Although regents have been supportive of Carpenter thus far, he says in the memo that "past actions suggest that regents have become more involved in the administration and operation of CCSN than I have seen elsewhere in the country. This can have the effect of encouraging end-runs and undermining the effectiveness of the college's administration."
Most of Carpenter's conclusions came as no surprise to Rogers and many of the regents, who said they had known or suspected as much for many years.
"I've been fighting that battle for five years," Regent Tom Kirkpatrick said. "They've had that incestuous relationship over there with family relationships for five years.
"Dr. Carpenter is probably hitting the nail on the head, but he's just scratched the surface."
Regents Mark Alden and Steve Sisolak said they first brought up the issue back under Richard Moore's regime several years ago.
Regents had already planned, at their October meeting, to look at the system policy that gives employees a minimum of a year's notice before they can be terminated, and according to the memo from Rogers accompanying Carpenter's, they'll also discuss many of the other issues Carpenter raised.
"The real world cannot function like this. It's absolute insanity that that is what we are doing," Sisolak said of the policy.
Carpenter's conclusions also did not come as a surprise to Carpenter's predecessor, Ron Remington, who regents demoted admidst controvery over hiring practices last November. Many of the above problems were issues he too inherited from previous administrations, or problems caused by the CCSN's rapid growth, he said. The community college is the largest institution in the state, Remington said, with several different campuses that all have their own unique culture, making it extremely difficult to manage.
Remington said he had been working for months prior to his demotion with outside consultants and internal administrators to implement more consistent hiring policies and to streamline the administrative organization. Remington said the policy memo he sent out on hiring practices in October 2003 enacted some of the most stringent policies in the state.
Despite the problems he listed in detail, Carpenter also praised the college's faculty and said he looked forward to the challenge of getting the college back on track.
"I believe in the potential of this college to be a national community college leader," Carpenter said.
"We have a diamond in this college, and we need to polish it, and that's all we need to do."
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