Reform hurting UNLV’s coffers

Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

UNLV stands to lose millions of dollars in federal money this year because of reform efforts in Congress to bring greater accountability to the budget process.

As part of a series of reforms in the new Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has instituted a moratorium this year on a practice known as earmarking. It allowed individual lawmakers to slip pet projects into the budget without review by the full Congress.

One of the universities hardest hit by the moratorium is one of Reid's No. 1 beneficiaries.

As a young, growing university, UNLV has depended on earmarks to develop its ability to compete for research dollars.

Nearly 40 percent of the $94 million in grant money the university took in for research, education and outreach initiatives in 2006 came from earmarks.

UNLV had $58 million worth of appropriation requests pending for 2007, $4 million of which managed to get funding before the ban, said Ron Smith, interim vice president of Research and Graduate Studies. That means the university will likely see a more than $30 million dip in its total research dollars, slowing some planned projects and postponing others.

President David Ashley and other administrators are attempting to portray those cuts in a positive light, saying that the moratorium may help propel UNLV forward as a research institution by forcing researchers to move more quickly toward competitive grants. To that end, in his first major act as president, Ashley announced that $1.5 million will be available to professors campuswide to help them apply for grants and buy needed equipment to make them more competitive in the quest for federal money.

Faculty Senate President Bill Robinson likened UNLV's situation to a 30-year-old finally being forced out of his mother's house. "It is rough if you didn't get ready for that day," Robinson said. "In the long run, we had to wake up to the fact that you can't live on the kindness of strangers for the rest of our lives."

While UNLV will likely see earmarks again in 2008, researchers expect to see lower levels of funding than the $35 million to $40 million of years past.

Cuts were a reality for which administrators had been preparing, but all said they thought UNLV would have another two or three years to better develop its research infrastructure. Federal grant money from organizations such as the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health tend to go to proven entities who have already successfully completed grant work. UNLV is ready for that in only a few areas.

"It is tough to break in when you are a young institution and you are competing against an institution with 200 years of history," said Eric Sandgren, dean of the College of Engineering.

"In a way earmarks help level the playing field."

Earmarks at UNLV have helped professors develop expertise in topics important to Southern Nevada, such as nuclear energy, the effects of radiation, nuclear waste transportation, earthquake hazards, unmanned aircraft and renewable energy. Earmarks pay for new equipment, materials, laboratory space and graduate assistants to help researchers expand their ability to do research. Results of earmarked projects often help obtain grants for related work.

Ashley, a construction engineer researcher, believes UNLV has to become more competitive for the university to mature. The very process of going through a competitive review leads to better proposals in the future and better researchers, he said.

Better researchers, he said, mean better professors in the classroom, raising the entire quality of the education at UNLV. Research can also lead to new technology that will spur the state's economic development.

Ashley's research awards include $750,000 culled from other programs to help researchers develop ideas, prepare competitive proposals, support university goals or travel for research or conferences, and $750,000 in administrative salary savings for one-shot equipment needs this spring.

Critics of earmarks often say they are wasted funds or not regulated as closely as competitive grant dollars. An example often cited by critics is the Alaska "bridge to nowhere," which would link the small town of Ketchikan to an island that currently has just 50 residents.

UNLV came under fire this summer for how its Institute for Security Studies had spent $8.9 million in earmarks.

But researchers at UNLV say earmarked money is carefully spent and that it is essential in getting many research centers off the ground, such as the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies, the Center for Energy Research, the Center for Nanotechnology and the School of Public Health. Earmarks will continue to be important to address regional needs, such as how to handle the quagga mussels at Lake Mead.

"I'm like any citizen," said Ron Yasbin, dean of the College of Sciences. "I read about this $223 million 'bridge to nowhere' and I get upset, but there are (appropriations) that are critical to our national security and enhancing our way of life."