Profs spill on outside pay, possible conflicts

Jeff German and Steve Kanigher

Friday, Oct. 19, 2007 | 7:35 a.m.

About 25 percent of UNLV's full-time faculty members reported earning outside income , and more than 100 acknowledged having faced possible conflicts of interest, university officials said Thursday.

Following Sun inquiries, a university review of forms submitted by 1,350 faculty members found 386 disclosures of additional income. Officials said, however, that some professors with several sources of outside income filed multiple disclosure forms.

Neal Smatresk, UNLV's executive vice president and provost, said he thinks that when the numbers are finally crunched, the number of professors declaring outside income will be close to 320.

In addition, 110 faculty members disclosed potential conflicts of interest in forms submitted to their respective college deans, Smatresk said. Although most of the conflicts stem from the faculty members' outside salaries, some reflect income earned by family members.

All those cases have been resolved by the deans.

"There are no outstanding conflicts that I'm aware of at this time," he said.

Smatresk said he was pleased with the response from the faculty members.

"This is what you would expect from an institution of this size and scope," he said. "At least in theory, the letter of the law has been met now."

The university requires all employees to file two forms, one disclosing outside work and the other declaring any potential conflict of interest. The forms are kept in employees' private personnel records.

The response is far greater than the one Smatresk received in August after a Sun request for the records.

At the time, a university search through the personnel records of 437 faculty members at six of UNLV's colleges turned up only 12 disclosure forms.

Describing the August response as "underwhelming," Smatresk acknowledged then that university officials had no idea how many professors were earning outside income.

To tighten the reporting process, Smatresk sent a memo to college deans instructing them to require that faculty members file the disclosure forms. Smatresk and his staff spent the past three weeks poring over those documents.

"This is a step in the right direction toward disclosure and getting a handle on what the faculty is doing," university system Regent Steve Sisolak said Thursday. "The next step is to get a policy in place to determine what will be available for the public to view."

UNLV officials have cited a Nevada System of Higher Education rule that classifies personnel records as confidential in refusing to give the Sun copies of the disclosure forms.

The only way officials can make the records public, they say, is if the Board of Regents changes the code - a move the board's Research and Development Committee is examining.

The four-member committee, headed by Regent Jason Geddes, is expected to hear recommendations from university system lawyers on Nov. 26 and debate the level of public disclosure. The committee will then bring the matter to the full 13-member Board of Regents, which will meet later that week.

Regent Ron Knecht, a committee member pushing for disclosure, credited the Sun's inquiries for prompting the debate on the policy change.

He said the fact that 386 cases of outside income were reported as a result "confirms suspicions" that reporting had been lax.

"But I am also heartened that (so many) are doing outside work, because it shows that they're making academic and professional improvement," he added.

Geddes agreed.

"I encourage outside employment because they're in real-world situations that they could bring back to the classroom," he said. "It keeps them grounded in what's going on so that they're not stuck in academia."

Knecht and Geddes said the regents next month will have to balance public disclosure with the rights of faculty members to preserve confidentiality agreements with outside employers that are intended to protect unpublished research.