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Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009 | 2 a.m.
UNLV President Neal Smatresk will meet with the Faculty Senate about some administrative pay raises.
Sun Archives
- Smatresk: UNLV strong, but ‘doing more with less’ (9-15-2009)
- With critical issues to tackle, UNLV leader takes reins (8-23-2009)
- Dread spreads at UNLV over less money, more students (8-12-2009)
- At UNLV, change at top would have costs (6-29-2009)
- Online classes backed, despite cost (6-20-2009)
- With colleges’ budget cuts final, what now? (6-2-2009)
- Faculty, professional staff shielded from furloughs (5-21-2009)
- Budget picture to clear as academic year ends (4-20-2009)
Sun Coverage
Beyond the Sun
UNLV is spending about $500,000 on raises and new positions for nonteaching administrators, raising hackles among faculty facing unpaid furloughs and support staff who have seen their ranks thinned by layoffs.
On paper it might appear to be reckless spending by UNLV, given that the university’s financial outlook is clouded by a 15.4 percent cut in state funding with more reductions likely.
But put in context, the money spent on administrative positions represents a move toward better business practices and, in the long, run, improved fiscal responsibility, says university President Neal Smatresk.
That’s the case he intends to make today to members of the Faculty Senate, who have asked him to explain some of the recent allocations for pay increases.
Because of state budget cutbacks, UNLV’s student affairs unit was required to cut $1.2 million — about 10 percent — from its budget.
But in shifting around even the more limited funding — with results that appear as pay raises for some — Smatresk says UNLV is streamlining the process in which students are enrolled and get financial aid, two areas where the university was badly slumping.
Smoothing the mechanics of enrollment was accomplished by creating the position of executive director of enrollment technology, at a base salary of $110,000, and by adding responsibilities to the director of student financial services, with an accompanying $18,800 pay raise to bring his salary to $115,000.
As a result, admissions processing is down to 10 days, compared with the three months it had been taking, and it isn’t a coincidence that UNLV’s new freshman class is the largest on record, Smatresk said. Financial aid is now “bundled and out the door” over the summer before the students even arrive, Smatresk said, when in previous years it might have been halfway through the first semester before the paperwork was finalized.
The raises and new positions for student affairs caught the eye of chemistry professor Bryan Spangelo, who was reviewing cost-cutting proposals submitted by each unit to the university’s Joint Evaluation Team, of which he is a member.
In addition to the new positions, current employees in the student affairs unit are benefiting from about $90,000 in raises, Spangelo said. The news “has caused some angst in a lot of people,” given that faculty is facing a 4.6 percent decrease in pay or the equivalent in furlough days, Spangelo said.
“There is no other unit on campus enjoying this kind of influx,” said Spangelo, a Faculty Senate member who has been at UNLV for 15 years. “There needs to be a well-defined and defensible argument for these increases at this time.”
Professor John Filler, chairman of the Faculty Senate, said he hopes Smatresk’s explanations will be sufficient to silence his critics. It’s possible for individuals to receive raises and for there still to be an overall cost-savings to the university, Filler said.
“If you eliminate two positions that had cost $100,000, and give someone a $20,000 bump to do the work, that’s considered to be fiscal responsibility,” said Filler, who teaches in the College of Education. “But on paper it would only show up as one person getting a pretty big raise.”
Without the proper context, news of such raises can be alarming, Filler acknowledged. He intends to ask the Faculty Senate to consider requesting that it be notified of such plans ahead of time, “and give everybody a chance to see what is the truth.”
And that raises another issue for the relatively young Smatresk administration: To what degree should he engage the faculty for input on budget adjustments that fall within his purview?
Smatresk said he’s happy to discuss — and justify — the decisions in any public forum. He noted that there is already faculty representation on a committee set up to review exceptions to the hiring freeze and he would support sharing more information with it.
However, “When you’re cutting and asking people to do a lot more with less, you have to give your line officers the freedom to consolidate and reallocate,” Smatresk said. “I’m not sure we need to have every single position go through the Faculty Senate.”
Although the university’s governance structure doesn’t require Smatresk to get the Faculty Senate’s approval for such decisions, Spangelo said he hopes this situation might provide the impetus to at least “get some new lines of communication up and running.”
Juanita Fain, UNLV’s vice president of student affairs, said she realizes the money being spent on jobs in her division has some people “very worked up. I’m sensitive to that.”
At the same time, “you still have to do business, and enrollment management is the university’s bread and butter,” Fain said. “We have to at least maintain enrollment, and hopefully increase it. Along the way we have to provide better services to students, faculty and staff.”
This is a part of why our economic system is in so much trouble, The "Elite" seem to think they live in a different world, the world of bonuses,
Taxpayer bailouts on demand, and sending American jobs to China. Meanwhile the middle class get less attention and help than polar bears! until people who think they deserve these
exorbitant salaries in this economy are forced to live in the same world as the rest of us we are headed for more trouble.
what kind of crap is this. lets get rid of football program u know that not making money
The more streamlined the process the better for a university and clearly if its made that much of an improvement just in admissions whoever was there prior deserved to be axed. Hopefully more of this occurs at UNLV as clearly they haven't been trimming as much as they could.
mrjb & perry...
Did you even bother to read the article?
I thought not.
Well this seems like a pretty balanced and complicated picture -- I would have to say it seems UNLV is to be applauded for taking bold steps to improve student services, even in tough economic times. And it does make sense that over time changes can result in better fiscal efficiencies. Maybe a communication issue more than anything?
What many posters seem to forget is that it is a buyers market right now. This is the perfect time for UNLV to be spending money. The university should be vigorously scrounging up money to secure the excellent faculty it has now and hire new faculty that will increase the university's academics and prestige.
This same outlook should be applied to building at the university. Construction costs are low and there is plenty of relatively inexpensive, experienced labor around the valley right now. Raise the money and build new dormitories (and make a mandatory 1 year stay on campus for all freshman), build a new stadium stadium on campus, etc.
This would be the perfect time for someone with vision to take UNLV to the next level.
UNLV's future is its law program. A better move would be to invest entirely in the law program (faculty, facilities, and scholarships) and let the undergraduates go to Reno, which is a better school anyway.
So, the Boyd School of Law is poised to be a top tier law school and this should be the focus.
The increased student enrollment means more work for everyone on campus -- from the faculty who are teaching extra courses and increasing enrollment caps to accommodate more students, to advising and support staff across campus who have heavier workloads while taking pay cuts, to the IT professionals who actually program and run the new enrollment system (and who also are taking pay cuts).
In times of financial difficulty for the entire state, when faculty staff are being asked to give back in terms of pay cuts and additional workload and when students are paying higher fees, it makes good fiscal sense for the administration to vet new positions, and promotions, through the Faculty Senate. This would provide additional oversight, help faculty understand why others are getting raises while we're taking pay cuts, and help keep the entire campus community focused on our educational and research mission.
In my opinion, $110,000/year for the Director of Enrollment Technology who is some dude that only graduated from college a few years ago????????
My opinion: must be nice to make double the market value of anyone else with similar credentials!
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/apr...
"Financial aid is now "bundled and out the door" over the summer before the students even arrive, Smatresk said, when in previous years it might have been halfway through the first semester before the paperwork was finalized."
Financial Aid was always bundled over the summer. In fact, awarding at UNLV generally begins around April (give or take a few weeks). Having worked at UNLV's Financial Aid office in the past, I know this to be true.
This misinformation (propaganda) is being fed to the media and the UNLV community to justify the pay raises. I would challenge anyone to fact check all that is being said by the UNLV administration. Often times, what is not fact checked is believed by too many to be true and becomes part of the public record.
Let me get this straight, this chemistry professor, who is leading the charge, makes $113,397. He works 9 months out of the year and probably has no staff reporting to him. Sign me up for his job. Maybe Spangelo is not so "good to go" and should investigate himself. Seems like a double standard to me and hidden agenda.
With another round of budget cuts coming for the state in the next few months, we need to be hearing how they are going to CUT overhead by millions, and protect students.
Students are paying more for fewer courses, faculty are teaching more students, staff are working harder for less money, but administrators are only willing to do more if they get paid more. Typical of higher education across America.
UNLV faculty are some of the best paid faculty in the country. Their pay is well above that of faculty at other mountain west state-level universities. For at least a decade the UNLV faculty have been able to compete for annual base pay merit raises as high as $4500, not to mention annual cost of living raises between 2 and 4% of base pay. Do the math - a professor starting at $60K could have easily shot past $120K during this period, even if he/she were not getting full merit each year. Furthermore, Spangelo and his tenured ilk are not taking a pay cut. Spangelo and other UNLV faculty are just upset that the UNLV administration would dare think of investing in some other personnel besides them. The golden years of huge merit raises and COLAs have really given them a sense of entitlement.
so Polkanut, you think that the faculty are overpaid and therefore administrators and staff should also be overpaid?
Sorry, but my opinion is that it is unethical for UNLV to hire some dude at $110k/year who only graduated college himself a few years ago and give someone else a $15k/year raise during these budget problems. Perhaps the state gave UNLV too much money this year if they can afford these things!
In my opinion, saying that these guys worked as hard as those earning tenure is an insult to injury for all faculty and I interpret that as a lack of respect for faculty. Last I checked, it takes FIVE years to earn tenure, not ONE year!
I applaud UNLV for streamlining admissions, and better managing financial aid, but the article gives no indication as to why this required new and better paid positions. If it were possible to do this all along, why didn't the people who were paid to handle these responsibilities do it before?
LKM - Would YOU care about the financial crisis at UNLV if it meant you could get more money? Wouldn't you feel special, if you were above the rules and could get a raise when no one else gets one and others are being laid off? Okay, so maybe you wouldn't, but some people would.
I never agree with nevadappleslices, but there is always a first. When the next round of layoffs come in January, and they start firing staff, how many of them will have to go because these raises were given to their bosses?
Does anyone at UNLV understand the basic concept of fairness or that students come first?
Exactly why I am gald most of you are not running UNLV. We don't need to be fair to many useless layers of bueracracy. Pay the people who work eliminate the jobs that are useless saves money and rewards the true workers and more importantly the ones that get it done. I love it as business owner and UNLV grad it is nice to see someone with good ideas and common business sense. This is a great time in the economy to eliminate the fat and become efficient every business is doing why not UNLV
reallyoldvegas,
never have I agreed with nevadaappleslices either. Still don't. If you look back at "it's" posts, they are mainly anti-UNLV rantings and ravings. And anti-education, anti-government workers, etc. anti would be a good screen name for it.
Exactly rebeldpt. The question is when are we going to get someone to do that? There are millions of dollars of wasteful bureaucracy at UNLV, none of which have been cut. All that gets cut are class sections and staff people. They are not giving more money to the people who work for a living, they are giving more money to the bosses.
When the economy went south, they got rid of the service people in admissions and financial aid, then the "big improvement" came when they hired new ones. If they had cleaned out the bosses first, they would never have had to do the repair necessary to "fix" a problem that existed only because they don't get management in the first place.
OK, Granny, how about the $18,000 raise to the other person and the $90,000 in raises to Student Affairs? That's at least salaries for two staff people who will have to be fired in January, who could have been saved. And, obviously, Spangelo and Filler disagree, so hardly do the faculty and administration agree.
P.S. Since everyone is in financial trouble, how many of those new students in the freshman class simply could not afford to go out of state and had to stay at UNLV? My guess: record enrollment is due to the economy, not the changes.
grandma, why can't some people see the forest for the trees?
And it also says:
In addition to the new positions, current employees in the student affairs unit are benefiting from about $90,000 in raises, Spangelo said. The news "has caused some angst in a lot of people," given that faculty is facing a 4.6 percent decrease in pay or the equivalent in furlough days, Spangelo said.
"There is no other unit on campus enjoying this kind of influx," said Spangelo, a Faculty Senate member who has been at UNLV for 15 years.
And, you definitely don't have an answer to the question of how it is right and fair to give some people raises that are equal to half the salary of a typical worker when the university is facing more budget cuts.
By the way, Granny, do you work for public relations at UNLV or in the President's office?
My opinions: It sounds like it is possible that some of the people that received raises are on here posting in defense. In my opinion, whoever thinks that some dude that graduated college a couple of years ago is worth $110k/year to "streamline" admissions technology and that they couldn't do it for less money, clearly has no understanding of the job market in this area and the normal salaries.
I hope that they enjoy their large raises while other UNLV employees are laid off.
They shouldn't have hired any more admin overhead nor given any a raise. If the ones they had weren't up to the job at what they were being paid, then they should've been replaced. In this economy and at those wages, competent replacements would be easy to find.
grandma, you absolutely do not understand the technology field and associated salaries. do some research. people with a computer sci degree and a couple of years of experience get around $60 to $80k/year and that is if they are lucky enough to get a job in this bad economy when they have so little experience and are relatively fresh out of college. NLV is right no that in this economy they could have easily found competent replacements at the old salary. In my opinion, if the guy would have left because he didn't get a $21,000 raise, See you Later!
let's let loggers run UNLV and I bet it would run way under budget and have lot's of extra money availible. But, of course all the do gooders would get pissed off reading this.
In California for years, the administrations of colleges and universities have taken huge pay raises in one hand, while pleading poverty with the other. The President of our local university makes several hundred thousand dollars, above that he gets housing allowance (enough to pay for a really really really nice place), entertainment allowance, comped tickets to high priced events, and has a staff (well paid also) to handle most of the work. They constantly raise fees, cut classes and services, raise fees, did I mention raise fees? The rest of us work harder for less, while the elite on the state payroll live like kings. I have no problem with business people, doctors, investors, working folks, etc. making all they can (I.E. people in private enterprise). But when the state is broke, those at the top need to try and "get by" on a little less in their state check. The rest of us pay for our housing and entertainment out of our salary, so can they.
my opinions: grandma, you have 40 years experience in software development ... nice, that means that you've been developing software since the 1960's before software development was even a well studied field. it's amazing the crap you spew and how outrageous your claims are. most universities track how much their recent comp sci graduates earn after graduation and that average is $60-$80k/year. but keep telling yourself otherwise.
you have not given one proof that this salary and raise was reasonable. IMHO, you only rant, "i'm so great because I'm supposedly old and blah, blah, blah, and I know everything". THIS DOESN'T JUSTIFY AN OFF-THE-CHART-SALARY!
in my opinion, you lack social skills because you keep arguing that 1 person deserves a raise while everyone else is furloughed or laid off; clearly, almost everyone else on here agrees, the faculty senate agrees, but you are out there on your own. Give it up. All UNLV employees are valuable and four people should not be considered above the rules in tough budget times.