Wednesday, April 11, 2007 | 7:32 a.m.
CARSON CITY - A looming showdown over the state's higher education budget - played out over the past week with terse letters and public statements - cooled somewhat Tuesday with a 30-minute chat between Gov. Jim Gibbons and university system Chancellor Jim Rogers.
Who is to say how it could have turned out, given the rhetoric the men had exchanged before?
Going in, Rogers had said Gibbons' proposed cuts threatened the "very fabric of higher education" in Nevada.
Gibbons countered that Rogers was being obstinate by refusing to make "realistic and responsible reductions" to higher education's budget in the face of decreased state revenue .
In their 30 minutes together, neither man changed his stance. But the meeting, Rogers said afterward, was "surprisingly cordial," with both of them understanding where the other man was coming from.
And both agreed to not send any more vitriolic letters.
The impasse will be resolved by state lawmakers, who have begun budget hearings.
The tension between Gibbons and Rogers surfaced last week, when the governor asked the Nevada System of Higher Education, along with most state agencies, to cut from their budgets more than 60 percent of what he saw as icing on the budget: additional funding for new initiatives. For higher education, that amounted to about $37 million.
Rogers, along with Executive Vice Chancellor Dan Klaich and Dan Miles, the system budget consultant, agreed to work with the governor's staff to prioritize their funding - but stopped short of offering cuts beyond the $15 million in initiatives Rogers had already identified.
Gibbons said he would then identify the cuts unilaterally, but would "minimize any adverse impact on the university system."
"They didn't agree to any reductions," Gibbons said as he left the session. "That's their position, being strong advocates for the university. But I have to deal with the reality that I have to balance the budget."
Rogers said that he understood Gibbons' position - and that he would now take his case directly to lawmakers. The state's Economic Forum, a five-member group that forecasts tax revenue , will have new data May 1, and Rogers was hopeful there would be more money over which to negotiate.
Rogers also hoped Gibbons would direct his cuts more toward the prison system and other state agencies than higher education.
Lawmakers are looking at making their own trims to the higher education budget.
And Rogers may wince.
"They are not going to like my cuts," Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, said.
Arberry, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which controls the budget, said legislators' cuts will be higher than any suggestion that comes from the university system.
Crucial to the debate is whether the money Gibbons will trim is icing, as he says, or basic funding, as Rogers says.
Gibbons says he has been generous to higher education, originally advocating increases in funding despite a "dramatic decline" in enrollments of nearly 5,000 students. Because updated figures show the state's income dwindling, those increases are no longer realistic, Gibbons told Rogers.
The governor said the chancellor should prioritize the higher education budget and suggest what budget cuts the Legislature should make.
But Rogers and Klaich said most of Gibbons' earlier increases - which he is threatening to reduce - are crucial to maintaining existing programs at UNLV, UNR, the Community College of Southern Nevada and Truckee Meadows Community College.
Klaich said systemwide enrollment has not declined, as Gibbons stated, but rather has not matched projections.
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