CCSN professors to get pay hikes

Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005 | 9:22 a.m.

Salaries

Average salaries for full-time instructional faculty at Nevada's community colleges:

Source: Nevada System of Higher Education

New nursing professors will also see higher starting salaries and higher cost-of-living adjustments if the Board of Regents approves the legislatively mandated raises at its meetings Thursday and Friday at the Desert Research Institute in Las Vegas.

If approved by regents, the recommended raises will be paid for out of a $1.6 million salary equity pool in taxpayer money established by the Legislature for this biennium.

The 2005 Legislature allocated the money to bridge a salary gap lawmakers found between CCSN professors and other community colleges in the state, but left it up to CCSN officials and regents as to how to distribute the cash.

A Legislative study found that CCSN professors made about $3,000 less on average than other community college professors in the state, despite being on the same salary schedule.

The disparity grew as CCSN was forced to keep hiring part-time and younger faculty to keep up with enormous growth, said Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, who spearheaded creation of the equity pool.

A Legislative study found the college to be severely underfunded in several areas because the formula the state uses to distribute money to the institutions did not keep up with the growth, Giunchigliani said. The equity pool, which will be phased in over the next six years, was her way of beginning to address the gap.

"CCSN continues to be the stepchild left behind," Giunchigliani, a former spokeswoman for the college, said.

CCSN President Richard Carpenter said he believed raising the base salaries of instructional faculty was the fairest way to divide the funds, but he is hoping regents will approve the special increases to nursing faculty to allow him to meet a severe shortage there.

The college has five full-time positions in nursing open, Fran Brown, Health Sciences dean, said. The college is covering the current class load by having faculty work overtime and by hiring more part-time faculty. That's after turning 111 qualified students away.

There's been a high turnover rate in nursing faculty because the nurses can make more money elsewhere, Brown and Carpenter said.

The proposal before regents next week would allow Carpenter to hire nursing faculty at higher steps on the salary schedule and to give nursing faculty raises 5.5 percent higher than the legislatively approved COLA and merit amounts.

The college is also looking at hiring nursing faculty from the Philippines as a way to meet the gap, Brown and Carpenter said.

Most regents said they were still looking at the specifics of the raises, but several said there was no doubt that CCSN professors needed and deserved the additional money.

"(CCSN) It is by far the largest institution, and it's not reasonable that they should be the lowest paid," Regent Steve Sisolak said, commending Giunchigliani for helping to allocate the money.

Regent Howard Rosenberg agreed, noting that the whole system also needs to look at the salaries it pays adjunct faculty.

One of the major concerns in distributing the equity pool was how to increase CCSN faculty salaries fairly without interfering with the strict salary schedule all community colleges share, Carpenter said. All of the state's two-year institutions use the same scale to pay professors based on their specific experience and qualifications.

Carpenter's plan will move all faculty up half a step on the scale this year and another half step the next, without adversely affecting the other institutions, Chancellor Jim Rogers said. All of the other community college presidents have signed off on the plan.

The 2005 Legislature indicated the college will be allocated up to $9 million over the next six years to continue to close the salary gap, Carpenter said.

CCSN faculty are pleased with the plan, having long felt they weren't being paid adequately for their work, Faculty Senate Chairman Darren Divine said.

"Is $800 enough?" Divine said. "No, but it's a great first step."

Part of Carpenter's plan for the equity pool money would also allow faculty to develop a distinguished professor program that will provide additional stipends to senior faculty who do additional work for the college, such as mentoring younger peers or teaching professional development workshops.