CSN swimming upstream in quest for funds

By Charlotte Hsu (contact)

Thursday, June 12, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Chris Morris

Even though the state higher education system is bracing for deep budget cuts, one college wants more money.

The College of Southern Nevada, which serves more students than any other public college in the state, wants lawmakers to boost its budget by $5 million over two years to bring its funding level closer to that of its peers. CSN gets less money per student than Nevada’s three other community colleges.

With the backing of Dan Klaich, executive vice chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, CSN officials will ask regents meeting in Reno today and Friday to request more money for the college in the next biennium.

Bringing CSN up to par with peers outside Nevada would require $20 million more per year, administrators say.

Officials would like to see CSN’s base budget grow by $2 million in the 2010 fiscal year and $3 million the following fiscal year, hoping for additional increases in the future.

“In my opinion, CSN has waited long enough for this adjustment to be brought to the board ... this institution — our largest and most diverse — has struggled long enough under the weight of this inequity,” Klaich said in an e-mail.

The funding disparity between CSN’s and other state schools’ has its roots in the 1990s, when the college’s funding failed to keep pace with rapid enrollment growth.

Addressing the shortfall now could very well be a pipe dream. College officials say they don’t want to take away from other institutions to achieve equality, so new money would be required to close the gap.

The governor has asked various state agencies, including the higher education system, to prepare to slash budgets by 14 percent in the next biennium.

Chancellor Jim Rogers has called on lawmakers and other state officials to find new ways — including new taxes — to fund education.

Given the doomsday budget climate, Klaich acknowledged that enhancing CSN’s funding was a lower priority than avoiding deep cuts to schools.

“I believe everyone is onboard with the highest priority being the maintenance of the current funding ... I don’t know that you get to enhancements without getting past that first hurdle,” he said.

That’s bad news for CSN.

This fiscal year CSN received $6,753 per full-time-equivalent student, less than the state’s three other community colleges and less than many similar out-of-state schools. Great Basin College got $11,990, Truckee Meadows Community College $7,806 and Western Nevada College $9,788, according to figures in a five-page memo from CSN to the Board of Regents.

A full-time-equivalent student is one or more students taking 15 credits. So a student taking three credits and another taking 12 would be counted as one full-time equivalent.

Poor funding has forced CSN to concentrate its resources in teaching — its core mission — while shortchanging other areas such as student support, CSN President Michael Richards said in an interview last month.