UNLV faculty, staff own up

Jeff German and Steve Kanigher

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

Tightening up a previously lax reporting process, UNLV officials say they have moved closer to getting a handle on how many faculty and staff members earn outside income.

Neal Smatresk, executive vice president and provost at UNLV, said his office has received thousands of copies of outside income forms from university employees and will review the records to ensure that any conflicts of interest have been properly disclosed.

"We have piles of records in our office that we have to go over," Smatresk said Monday. "We had a large response."

After Sun stories last month reported that UNLV officials had no idea how many faculty members earn outside income and no accurate way to tell whether conflicts of interest are occurring, Smatresk vowed to improve the process.

That pledge came after he received what he described as an "underwhelming response" for the records from college deans, who are supposed to keep track of the disclosure forms. The Sun had requested copies of the records.

Faculty and staff earning outside income are required to fill out two forms, one disclosing the outside work and the other declaring whether the work represents a conflict of interest with their university duties.

But last month, Smatresk said that a review of 437 faculty members at six high-profile UNLV colleges found only two conflict of interest forms and 10 outside employment documents .

The response, he said, did not give a true picture of how many faculty and staff had contracted to do private consulting. Two of the colleges, engineering and hotel administration, are known to have large numbers of professors doing consulting work.

Smatresk subsequently sent a memo to all deans and department heads, instructing them to require their faculty to file the two disclosure forms, even if they don't have any outside employment, and provide his office with copies.

"It seems unlikely that only 12 of our faculty are engaged in outside consultation or employment," Smatresk wrote.

The supervisors were supposed to provide Smatresk with copies of the forms, which are kept in the personnel files of each faculty member, by last Friday.

UNLV officials have cited 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 examining.

But the committee has put off a vote, which was supposed to take place Oct. 4, until the last week of November.

Regent Jason Geddes, who heads the committee, said Monday that the university system's staff is not prepared to provide the panel with a recommendation next week.

The delay means that the 13-member Board of Regents, which expects to receive a report from the committee, will not be able to take up the subject until its Nov. 29-30 meeting.

That doesn't sit well with one Research and Development Committee member, Regent Ron Knecht.

"I'm very disappointed to hear that we're not moving faster on this," Knecht said.

The debate focuses on the extent to which the public has a right to know about the ties between faculty members and private businesses.

Most of the regents polled by the Sun said they favored making public the disclosure forms.