Regents expected to approve budget

Friday, Aug. 20, 2004 | 9:29 a.m.

RENO -- Regents today were expected to approve a proposed budget of $1.5 billion to finance the University and Community College System over the next two years, an increase of 20 percent.

It calls for $260.2 million more in the 2005-2007 biennium but $132.3 million is due to expected student growth of 5.9 percent in the next year and 6.8 percent in the following year. Enrollment is expected to grow from the equivalent of 61,811 full-time students to 69,901 at the end of the coming two years.

The budget does not include for any pay raises for university faculty but does include money for performance-based salaries.

The $1.5 billion total does not include $100.6 million in extra expenditures to double the capacity of nursing students, upgrade security on various campuses and provide more counseling to students to help keep them in school to graduation.

The system also is asking for $89.4 million to replace federal money lost as the estate tax is phased out. Nevada, which does not have its own estate tax, gets a portion of the federal tax paid by state residents.

The budget includes a rise in tuition for university undergraduates from $91 to $98 a credit in 2006 and $105 in the 2007 school year. Community college credit fees would go from $49 to $50 to $52, and the cost per credit at the Nevada State College in Henderson would go from $70 to $74 to $79 a credit.

Those fees would generate $307 million of the total, with the state asked to kick in $1.1 billion and $40.3 million to come from other sources. That is a 21 percent increase in state support.

The proposed budget calls for UNLV to receive $460.9 million for its base budget, up 21.5 percent.

The Community College of Southern Nevada has a proposed budget of $247.8 million, up 24.5 percent.

The base budget for Nevada State College in Henderson would increase 127 percent to $19.4 million.

The University of Nevada School of Medicine, which operates in Reno and Las Vegas, also is asking to boost its enrollment by 40 students over the next four years. It now trains 208 students a year. That would cost $4.3 million over the biennium.

In addition to the amounts in the base budget, the system is asking for extra money for the following: