Builders freed up, so UNLV saves on parking garage

By Charlotte Hsu

Sunday, Oct. 5, 2008 | 2 a.m.

A burst housing bubble and slowed construction mean UNLV is getting a better-than-expected deal for a new parking garage.

The 1,011-space structure, to be built next year off Tropicana Avenue near the Thomas & Mack Center, will cost $13 million.

That comes out to less than $13,000 per parking space — at least $2,000 less than some area businesses have recently paid to add parking, said Gerry Bomotti, UNLV’s senior vice president of finance and business.

Bomotti said one reason the university was able to secure such a good deal was that there is less competition today for builders’ services.

The school’s parking division will draw $2 million from its reserves to help finance construction of the new garage. On Thursday, the Board of Regents, which governs public higher education, approved issuing a bond to pay the remainder of the costs.

The university will pay back its bond debt over 30 years using parking revenues. The Thomas & Mack Center and athletics division, which will use the garage during special events, will contribute $250,000 per year toward repayment.

Administrators say chronic griping about parking is evidence that a new garage is necessary. As UNLV President David Ashley told regents at their meeting last week, “there is no single complaint more common than parking on UNLV’s campus.”

To help pay for the structure, parking fees will increase by as much as 10 percent each year over the next five years. Currently, annual permits cost students $115, less than what many schools in neighboring states charge.

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Regents on Thursday approved the reappointment of three full-time UNLV College of Education faculty members who are drawing state retirement pensions.

Jerry Hughes, an associate faculty-in-residence in sports education hired last year, is making $85,904 this year. Michael Robison, a professor-in-residence in education leadership hired in 1997, is making $70,124. And Pamela Salazar, an assistant professor in education leadership hired in 2003, is making $73,799.

UNLV can hire retirees receiving state pensions in cases of “critical labor shortage,” which is the justification the university used to hire Hughes, Robison and Salazar.

Nevada’s Public Employees’ Retirement System does not provide information on how much individual retirees receive from the state pension fund.

Robison and Salazar, former Clark County School District administrators, could not be reached for comment. Replying to an e-mail asking for information on his employment history and pension, Hughes, former executive director of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, wrote that he had been asked to direct the Sun’s correspondence to a college of education associate dean, who did not return a call for comment.

Only six full-time UNLV employees receive a state pension, and their annual salaries total less than $500,000.

Few UNLV faculty members qualify for PERS. As Associate Vice President of Human Resources Bud Pierce explained, faculty members are not eligible for PERS unless they previously worked at another public agency enrolled in the state retirement program.

Instead, for most professors, UNLV matches retirement contributions of 10.5 percent of their paychecks to one or more of three private retirement plans.

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Faculty members and administrators tend to overestimate student demand for new academic programs.

That’s nothing new. A report regents reviewed at their meeting last week showed that enrollment fell short of projections in 15 of 25 programs in their third year at state colleges in fall 2007 and eight of nine programs in their fifth year in fall 2007.

Some predictions were wildly off. At UNLV, a graduate program in crisis and emergency management enrolled 14 students in fall 2007, less than a tenth of the 150 expected.

“The head count always seems to come out well under projections, significantly under projections,” said Jason Geddes, chairman of the regents’ student and academic affairs committee. “The question is, how are we projecting those numbers?”