We’ll do better, UNLV promises

Jeff German and Steve Kanigher

Thursday, Aug. 23, 2007 | 7:23 a.m.

Because of a lax reporting process, UNLV officials said this week they have no idea how many faculty members earn outside income and have no accurate way to tell whether conflicts of interest are occurring.

The admission is the result of what UNLV Executive Vice President and Provost Neal Smatresk described as a "meager response" from college deans to a Sun request last month for copies of the outside income and conflict of interest forms filed by faculty members within the past year.

"There's no beating around the bush," Smatresk said. "We don't feel we have an adequate representation of outside employment and conflicts of interest at this time, and we're concerned about it."

UNLV officials said this week that they received only two conflict of interest forms and 10 outside employment documents from the 437 faculty members in six colleges for which records were sought. Faculty members performing outside work are required to file both forms, which means the figures provided by UNLV are inconsistent.

UNLV President David Ashley informed the Faculty Senate of his concerns Tuesday and on Wednesday told the Sun he would take immediate steps to tighten the reporting process, including developing an online system of annual reporting that can be monitored by the administration.

"It's disappointing and unacceptable," Ashley said. "The code requires self-reporting for people involved in external work for extra compensation, and the deans are the point of control. Based on this response, neither was effective."

Under the current process, all UNLV faculty members engaged in consulting or other outside work must file separate forms disclosing their work and declaring whether the outside tasks conflict with their university job.

The forms are submitted to college deans and placed in faculty members' personnel files. But there is no centralized filing system.

That procedure has allowed UNLV officials to cite a Nevada System of Higher Education rule that classifies personnel records as confidential as the basis for refusing to give the Sun copies of the disclosure forms.

The only way they can disclose the records, officials say, is if the Board of Regents changes the code - something the board's Research and Development Committee is now examining.

A poll of the 13-member board taken by the Sun last month found that the majority favored disclosure. Chancellor James Rogers , who also supports making the records public, said Wednesday he would work with the regents to change the secretive reporting procedure.

"It concerns me," Rogers said. "We'll work it out."

UNLV administrators realized they did not have a handle on outside employment after the deans of several colleges expected to have a high concentration of professors with consulting contracts provided an unusually small number of disclosure forms.

The Sun had asked for copies of the forms for faculty members at the colleges of business, engineering, sciences, hotel administration, urban affairs and law. Without providing the names of the faculty members involved or the specifics of their nonuniversity duties, UNLV officials said that looking into that request turned up only the two conflict of interest forms and 10 outside employment forms.

Two colleges that should have had a significant number of forms disclosing outside income, engineering and hotel administration, appear to have underreported the outside work of their faculty members, said Ashley, an engineering professor who performed private consulting while at other universities.

Hotel administration reported no disclosure forms for its 58 faculty members, and engineering reported one conflict of interest document and one outside income form for its 67 professors.

Eric Sandgren , the dean of the engineering college, estimated this month that he receives 12 disclosure forms a year.

The largest concentration of documents submitted occurred at the law school, which said it had eight outside employment forms on file. But no one at the law school submitted the required conflict of interest form. The school has 39 faculty members.

The urban affairs college, with 66 faculty members, reported one conflict of interest form in its records, but no accompanying outside income form.

Regent Steve Sisolak , a strong proponent of opening up and revamping the reporting process, said UNLV officials' description of the response they received as "meager" is a generous one.

"To me, it looks pathetic," he said. "We've clearly dropped the ball in not having a quantifiable reporting system that we can at least determine the amount of work going on and if there are any potential conflicts."

UNLV Faculty Senate Chairman Bryan Spangelo , a biochemistry professor, said his colleagues need to be vigilant about submitting outside income forms, but suggested that most faculty members would argue the documents should remain confidential because of the outside work's proprietary nature.

Spangelo said he intends to bring up the issue at the Faculty Senate's next meeting Sept. 18.

Regent James Dean Leavitt , a member of the Research and Development Committee, said university department heads have to do a better job of collecting outside income information from their professors if they want to assure the public they are free of conflicts of interest.

The loose system of reporting has potentially created a more serious problem for UNLV, Ashley said.

"What I haven't heard enough (about) is conflict of commitment, where people are engaged in outside activities to such an extent that it impacts their ability to deliver their university responsibilities," he said.

Most professors are allowed to perform outside work one day a week so long as it does not interfere with their university duties. But with such poor record keeping, UNLV cannot be certain faculty members are abiding by that rule.