Advocating for quality public higher education, and the faculty who deliver it, is a difficult duty at this point in our history. Across the country, and especially in Nevada, these are hard times which require us in the NFA to take some hard looks and face some hard truths.

Last year, the NFA state board began that hard reckoning. We acknowledged that the Alliance had not kept up with the times and needed to become both more professional and more adept. We took significant first strides in that direction by establishing a new media presence – a new website (nevadafacultyalliance.org), a widely read blog, Facebook, Twitter and a weekly e-newsletter that reached thousands of faculty, lawmakers, press and general interest readers. This year we will continue that work by integrating the Alliance more closely with our electronic communications. To make the most of this tool, we will rely on our members, and our colleagues, to contribute thoughtful content on the wide range of issues of concern to higher education faculty.

But that is really the easy part.

We also began last year taking an even harder look at our relationship with the AAUP, of which we have been the Nevada state affiliate for more than 30 years. Many of us have been disappointed that the AAUP has not been more responsive to our calls for help during the state financial crisis that has led to threats of program cuts and faculty terminations (including tenured faculty); and we have been outright indignant about the AAUP’s decision not only to raise member dues on some income bands but also to charge us at the highest income band for all our members – and to charge us at the collective bargaining rates.

That bill to Washington would, if paid, consume more than 60 percent of NFA member dues – at a time when the need for member services in this state is the greatest in our history. So the NFA state board made a hard decision in January to withhold any further dues payments to the AAUP until we have resolved what sort of relationship the NFA and AAUP should have going forward. We have proposed to the AAUP that we would pay the dues in full but the national office would retain only enough to pay for services actually rendered – the magazine to our members and our members’ grants to travel to summer institutions and other leadership training. NFA would be immediately rebated the rest of our members dues, with 100 percent of that rebate being devoted to recruitment and member services in Nevada. This reasonable proposal remains on the table, but the time will come soon when the NFA membership – as a block, by campus chapters, or as individuals – will have to make a hard choice about whether the AAUP affiliation is in our best interest.

In these times, we must take a hard look as well at our relationship to the System and Board of Regents. The NFA has long prided itself on being a constructive partner with the Regents and Chancellor’s office, but we must ensure this year that this partnership works both ways. Faculty leadership was rarely, if ever, called upon to speak during Regents’ discussions of the budget crisis; while students were regularly solicited to speak to the board on matters of concern such as fees, and while the impact on the community was given hours of public comment, the faculty perspective on degree program eliminations and the curricular review process was too often glossed over. As we look forward, and the System begins a new phase of strategic planning, we note with regret a near-total absence of faculty from the preliminary documents. The System, and its institutions, will never find a successful path out of the current crisis without its faculty taking a leading role, and it is our task and responsibility not only to the faculty but to the students, the System and the state, to stand firm when need be to ensure our classroom perspective guides the planning. And when faculty contract and due process rights are not respected, we will provide legal support to members with valid cases to bring.

In our government relations, we must take a hard look at our allies. The NFA Political Action Committee – which has generally sought to lend our good name and precious treasure to the better candidate in nearly every race – will now have to make hard decisions and focus our efforts on a few candidates with a demonstrated commitment to quality, public higher education. We can no longer afford to support candidates merely due to party affiliation or a statement of support for “education.” We may well focus our attention in the coming cycle on the few elected officials in the state legislature and on the board of regents who demonstrate a real commitment to the concerns of higher ed faculty – ensuring adequate and fair funding for all our institutions, addressing the loss of competitive compensation and health benefits, and protecting what is best for our students, including contract rights and due process for faculty in hard times.

Most of all, though, we must each take a hard look in the mirror at ourselves. NFA campus chapters and members cannot simply rely on the state board to address all concerns. All of us need to be involved this fall in developing active and effective strategies, suited to the situation on each campus, to recruit new members, mobilize existing members, and establish sustainable, effective models of advocacy. If you have not heard from your campus chapter president, contact him or her and volunteer your time and your energy.

These are hard times for public higher education. For the NFA, this means it is a time for a hard look around.

Friday, Aug. 26, Jeffrey Downs, professor of mathematics at Western Nevada College, reported that the Faculty Senate he chairs had passed the following resolutions:

Whereas CSN (College of Southern Nevada), GBC (Great Basin College), and TMCC (Truckee Meadows Community College) have not terminated tenured faculty in the 2011-2013 biennium due to Curricular Review, the WNC Academic Faculty Senate resolves that no WNC tenured faculty be terminated due to Curricular Review 2011-2013 and that no new faculty be hired during that period until those tenured faculty positions have been secured. Faculty are encouraged to refrain from serving on search committees until those tenured positions under curricular review are maintained or reassigned with tenure.

Whereas WNC has no Curricular Review process established in its institutional bylaws, the Academic Faculty Senate resolves that the current Curricular Review process be rejected and a valid curricular review process be jointly developed by the administration and the Academic Faculty Senate.

The Western Nevada College Academic Faculty was summoned to a meeting on March 4, 2011 and informed of the pending Curricular Review process.This meeting was presented as an informational meeting and faculty were informed that the determinations for the cuts would be made by April 4. Faculty were asked if there were questions, but not invited to participate in developing the curricular review process outside the setting of this one-hour informational meeting.

On April 4, the entire college was informed that seven faculty were being cut, but no specific reasons for the cuts were given. General justifications were that some had low enrollment, some had low program completions, and some taught developmental classes.  The WNC Academic Faculty Senate was informed that they must respond to the cuts proposed by the administration by May 4. The president was to make final cut decisions (pre-Reconsideration process) by May 13 to allow notices of termination to be issued by June 30, 2011.

The WNC Academic Faculty Senate formed a Curricular Review Response Group (CRRG) to address the proposed cuts. The CRRG determined the seven affected faculty could be saved with the cuts being placed elsewhere in the institution. This finding was fully shared with the administration.

The WNC Academic Faculty Senate voted in April 2011 for the WNC Administration to abandon the current Curricular Review Process and restart the process to include meaningful and substantial Academic Faculty input. The WNC Administration rejected this response and requested a meeting with the Curricular Review Response Group.

May 2, 2011 The WNC Administration met with the Curricular Review Response Group.  The president asked if she could delay her decisions until Fall 2011, after the budget is decided by the legislature. The Curricular Review Response Group agreed.

June 2011, the WNC administration offered five of the seven affected faculty a “super buyout” in the form of 150% of their salary. Two faculty accepted this. Two administrative vacancies are filled: A new director of the foundation via a search committee and a coordinator of work force development is appointed without a search committee.

August 22, 2011, the administration meets with the Curricular Review Response Group. The funding shortfall for WNC was 18% rather than 31%.  Several of the administrative and classified employees who were slated to be cut are retained. Two of the remaining five faculty members have a potential  reassignment. As stated by VP of Human Resources, one of the reassigned faculty members would not retain her tenure in her new assignment.

August 26, 2011, the WNC Academic Faculty Senate passes another resolution again rejecting the Curricular Review process and requesting the process be restarted with faculty involvement. Another resolution is passed encouraging faculty to not serve on search committees until the five faculty affected by Curricular Review are retained.

August 30, 2011, the president and VP Human Resources/Legal Counsel meet the the Academic Faculty Senate chair and former chair/NFA Chapter President to discuss the resolution. The president and VP take the position that the March 4 meeting was the time the Academic Faculty were supposed to give input to the VP of Academic and Student Affairs prior to her making the decisions for the cuts. The meeting ends with the two sides disagreeing as to the content of the March 4 meeting.

September 5, 2011, the five remaining tenured faculty members stand to undergo the Reconsideration Process at WNC with two having potential reassignments, pending funds.

September 6, 2011, no letters of termination have been sent to the affected faculty.  The affected faculty have no written declaration citing cause for their termination.

The Academic Faculty Senate approved two facutly members for the Reconsideration Committee. The president appointed the VP of Academic and Student affairs and another faculty member to the reconsideration committee. The president appointed a former administrator for the college as the chair for this committee. This person is paid as a consultant to the college. The chair has a vote only in the case of a tie.

Her strong record of working to make high-quality education accessible to Nevada families makes Kate Marshall the right choice.

The Nevada Faculty Alliance (NFA), which advocates for quality, accessible higher education in Nevada, announced today its endorsement of Kate Marshall for Congress from Nevada's 2ndCongressional district.  The NFA’s state board announced the endorsement of Marshall today after reviewing her record as Nevada's Treasurer and her detailed answers to a questionnaire on federal higher education issues.

According to University of Nevada-Reno Environmental Science Professor Glenn Miller, who co-chairs the  Endorsement Committee of the NFA’s Political Action Committee, "Kate Marshall is the solid choice of higher education faculty for the Second Congressional seat in this special election. She has been an excellent Treasurer during the last six years, particularly in her careful management of the Millennium Scholarship Program, and the 529 college savings programs. When she came into office, she raised questions about the financial stability of these programs before they became a crisis, and through her effective financial management, she helped ensure the scholarship program would continue to keep college affordable for Nevada families."

Among the achievements noted by the NFA state board were Marshall's effective oversight of the state Pre-Paid tuition program, which allowed thousands of Nevada families to pay tuition rates set before recent increases, thus saving thousands of dollars for their children's education. She also oversaw the expansion of the Nevada College Savings Plan, an account like an IRA in which families can invest in their children's education independently. She cut administrative costs of these accounts by 50 percent, making Nevada's Plan one of the most efficient and best-rated in the country.  Finally, the Faculty were impressed by innovations Marshall has brought to Nevada, such as "Ugift " and  the "Silver State Matching Grant" program to enhance college savings among working families.
 
NFA President and chair of the PAC, Greg Brown, of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, added, "She has shown in the past six years that she is truly concerned with helping students and their families afford college. We are also deeply impressed with her understanding of what needs to be done in Washington to keep college affordable for all Nevada families - like preserving Pell Grants for those who need them, and by ensuring money for student loans is issued to students, not used to subsidize banks. Her sound financial judgment on issues like this is why we endorsed her for Congress."

The 2011-2013 officers of the NFA state board, elected in May, have taken office and begun executing their duties. Their first meeting is scheduled August 18.

To see the list of statewide officers and campus presidents, along with their contact information, click here.

Editor's note: NFA leadership wanted to share the following message, which it received today from AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka.

Dear Colleague:

I would recommend that you read this short article on the AFL-CIO Now Blog about a recent conference of scholars at Georgetown University:
http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/06/09/academics-activists-search-for-new-ways-to-revitalize-labor-movement/print/

The AFL-CIO is involved in establishing a new network of college and university faculty members, graduate teaching employees, student activists, and scholars who support the interests of working families and favor policies to rebuild the middle class in our country. The network was launched at a June 8, 2011, conference at Georgetown that included academics from around the country, from multiple disciplines, who are promoting the study and exchange of ideas about creative ways of organizing workers into unions, worker centers, and other forms of worker organizations. The yet-to-be-named academic network is currently assembling an interim executive committee and planning its future activities.

In order to help keep you informed about the pro-worker research, writing, and activism of scholars around the country, the AFL-CIO has started an electronic mailing list. Subscribers will receive periodic email messages with information that is pertinent to our ongoing efforts to create jobs in the United States, uphold workers’ rights, and educate the public about the actual roots of the jobs crisis. Messages will come from Dan Marschall, the Federation’s policy specialist for workforce issues. Dan is a professorial lecturer in Sociology at George Washington University in Washington, DC. If you have any ideas about the mailing list, or would like to propose other subscribers, you can reach Dan at dmarscha@aflcio.org. If you would like to opt out of this mailing list, you may use the “click here to unsubscribe” line at the bottom of this message.

College faculty members and students have been vocal in their support for workers’ rights. In March, for example, American Rights at Work released a petition signed by 849 scholars and university research staff that points out that the rights to organize and bargain collectively are human rights that must not be abridged. In May, more than 80 prominent Catholic scholars challenged conservative Congressional budget policies that eliminate protections for vulnerable families. In addition, more than 2,300 academics and faculty members have signed an “Open Letter in Support of University of Wisconsin Students, Faculty and Staff” that backs the rights of all workers to form unions and bargain collectively. The Wisconsin letter is still available online at http://www.petitiononline.com/taa2010/.

We hope that this new mailing list will enhance communication among scholars across disciplines on various current issues and public policy debates. We look forward to your thoughts on the material we send to you.

Sincerely,
Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

The Council of Faculty Senate chairs of the Nevada System of Higher Education today made the following statement to the Board of Regents on the prospect of the termination of tenured faculty through curricular review. These terminations are part the System's reduction of $85 million annual operating expenses as part of the state budget just passed by the legislature earlier this month.

We began the session in a huge hole dug for us by Governor Sandoval’s recommendation that we be cut 29 percent below the current level of funding, which the governor justified in his State of the State speech by arguing that the Nevada System of Higher Education had "failed."  That sentence in the State of the State speech is still very galling to think about, given that we have one of the smallest faculties in the nation on a per-capita basis, doing a solid job of delivering education to as many students as possible. The governor also had suggested that the budget hole should be filled entirely by tuition increases and salary cuts.

To cover the $162 million which he proposed to cut in state support, student tuition and fees would have had to be increased by 73 percent or faculty and staff salaries across the board would have had to be cut by more than 60 percent. Neither was a reasonable option and both were dismissed out of hand by the regents.

Put clearly, it was no exaggeration to say that this budget would have pushed the System into dire financial straits, likely a declaration of exigency, and certainly the termination of dozens of degree programs, possibly hundreds of tenure-earning and tenured faculty, and a drastic reduction in the numbers of students who would be enrolled into higher education  – up to 20,000 per year. Closure of sites and even entire campuses were rumored to be under consideration.

No one felt very good about these prospects for most of February and March.

The System responded in April by proposing an alternative – voiced by Chancellor Dan Klaich and supported by the regents, campus presidents, student leadership and faculty leadership – that was well-received and ultimately supported by the democratic leadership in the legislature, notably Assembly Majority Leader Marcus Conklin and Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford and Democrat members of both money committees.

That plan included a willingness by NSHE to make massive cuts in exchange for some matching support from the State, plus tuition increases that would in amount match the permanent cuts and the contribution by the State. It was a 40-40-40 plan, which meant that NSHE institutions would agree to cut $40 million each year from current operating levels, in exchange for $40 million above the governor's recommendations from the State, plus tuition increases that would, by the second year of the biennium, total about $40 million per year.

Another element of the plan was what was called “smoothing” which mean that NSHE institutions would take a larger than proposed cut in the first year of the biennium in exchange for a smaller than proposed cut the second year. This element was agreed to, and will have the effect of having the base budget for NSHE about $35 million higher at the end of the second year of the next biennium than would otherwise have been the case.

Overall, this plan means that NSHE will be cut a bit more than 15 percent for the coming biennium, which is a great improvement over where we started the session, but still is a very sad state of affairs with many implications for higher ed in Nevada, and for economic diversification as well. And it is by far the largest cut of any entity for which the State has funding responsibility.

While the Four Point Plan was somewhat successful in communicating an idea of shared sacrifice, it represents a reality forced on NSHE by the huge cut in state support proposed by the governor. That reality is that this was a plan to administer real cuts and to impose significant fee increases on students – predicated on a significant increase in state support above the huge cut proposed by the governor. As we stated at the time, it represented real "shared sacrifice by students, staff and the state."

Since this plan involved an additional 15-percent cut in state support for NSHE in 2011-2013, on top of the 20-percent cut in the current biennium (2009-2011), it left no margin of reserves on which to draw to cushion any additional cuts. Any cut above the proposed plan would mean loss of programs, faculty and staff positions, and student educational opportunities due to caps in enrollment and reduction in classes, degree programs, and departments.  

In this respect, the financial integrity of the Four Point Plan, and the principle of shared sacrifice among staff, students and the state, was unexpectedly undermined when the joint budget committees voted to disallow the second year half of the proposed fee increase – which NSHE student leadership had supported! When the committees originally adopted this cap on student fee increases of 13 percent, it was in the context of $20 million more in state support than the final budget close (in effect, substituting state dollars for student fees) and in what appeared at the committee hearing to be a mistaken belief that the System was holding sufficient reserves to prevent any further cut in academic programs should total state and student support be reduced.

This strange turn of events could leave NSHE institutions having to cut even more deeply into academic programs – and thus into faculty and staff lines – than had been proposed in the Four Point Plan. The NFA will urge the regents to make every effort to ensure access for students and keep college affordable, but also to balance the cost of removing the second year of tuition increase from the Four Point Plan. (Doing so, for instance, will result in another $5.5 million cut from academic programs at UNR and $8.4 million at UNLV, as the largest examples.)

NFA has urged the legislative leadership to recognize the autonomy of the regents to determine whether a second-year tuition increase will be necessary to avoid even deeper cuts to academic programs and student opportunities. Since 15 percent of all fee increases are set aside for in-state need-based scholarship aid, and federal and state financial aid will further account for some of this increase, an increase in fees will be less drastic on student opportunities than closing or capping programs.

By now, all know that the Supreme Court finally intervened a week before the session was to end, and forced a dramatic change in plans for both some of the Rs and, most importantly, by the governor.  While it is hard for some of us to forget the early claims of the governor in the State of the State speech that the System had "failed," we should be grateful that in the end, the governor did not, after the Court decision, decide to cut even more. Instead, he admitted that deeper cuts to education would harm the state irreparably and agreed to allow most of the sunsetting taxes to be renewed for another two years.

So, we ended up with the Four Point Plan approved in principle (though still needing clarification in execution). We are now learning what this means on  each campus, but in general terms, it will mean somewhat fewer than 1,000 faculty and staff positions will have to be eliminated and somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 students across the state will be denied access to courses that they need each year of the biennium.

In brief, although we all realize that “it could have been worse,” it is difficult to celebrate this outcome very enthusiastically.

Other issues from the Session:

• See http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/76th2011/Reports/TablesAndIndex/2011_76-index.html for a complete listing of the dozens of bills introduced that dealt with NSHE institutions and operations. Look under NSHE. Here are a few highlights worth noting.
• The much-needed bill to do another formula study (which had been requested for the past several sessions), SB 374, passed, and this important project will move forward. The committee will have three senators, three assembly members, three regents, and seven people appointed by the governor (three voting members and four non-voting members).
• The much-discussed bill to loosen oversight of concealed guns on campus, SB 231, passed the Senate but failed to get out of the Assembly Judiciary committee. NFA and the System took a strong position against this bill, as did law enforcement throughout the state. But the bill also had strong proponents and the NRA was always lurking in the background. This was a good win, and we thank the members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, especially chair William Horne and vice-chair James Ohrenschall, for giving a full and fair hearing of the bill.
• The Millennium Scholarship Program, facing elimination until the final days of the session, was funded through 2015, with approval of the Sandoval recommendation of an additional $10 million in the fund, to complement the $7.6 million per year from the Unclaimed Property fund and the money coming from the tobacco settlement. This is a rare bit of good news for Nevada students!
• The regent redistricting plan developed by the NSHE staff, led by Scott Wasserman, also passed and will be signed by the governor – the only redistricting plan to this point which will become law.
• Some of the more than two dozen separate budget accounts were consolidated in ways that should make managing the budget cuts somewhat easier. Also, the regents were granted more authority to move money among budget categories.
• However, SB 434 sat in Senate Finance until the last day and failed to gain approval in the Assembly. This bill would have allowed NSHE institutions to retain funds not spent at the end of the fiscal year instead of having to spend or revert them. Also, the bill would have gotten NSHE out from under the control of the Public Works Board, which would have saved money and time on NSHE building projects. Sad to lose this one, but it died.
• The arena bill to help fund for a large sports arena in Las Vegas came too late, and died. UNLV had a great deal of support for its privately-funded proposal to construct an arena on campus and reconstruct Thomas & Mack into a student services center, but failed to overcome the issue of three separate arena proposals fighting for the right to move forward with development.
• Perhaps one of the oddest bills was AB 449 that was supported by both parties in the legislature, by the business community,  and by the governor. The bill was designed to promote economic diversification in Nevada, and was modeled after such efforts in Utah. However, Utah funded this effort with more than $24 million per year. The Nevada Knowledge Fund created by this bill – designed to allow the two universities and DRI to compete for funds that would foster economic development – originally was slated for $8 million per year from the two universities and DRI but ended up with no funding at all! Thus, the Knowledge Fund will be, for the coming biennium, more symbolic than real in its effects.
• AB 128, sponsored by Assemblyman Paul Aizley, to limit smoking on campuses, did not reach the floor of the Assembly. However, campuses will of course be able to consider tobacco-free programs on their own initiative.

Pay and Benefits

The news is not too good on this front either, although, again we can take solace in knowing that it could have been worse. The governor originally proposed a straight 5-percent cut in salary for all employees of the State, but the legislature did not agree and worked out a compromise that is slightly better, for which we are grateful.

All employees, including tenured professors, will take a 2.5-percent pay cut, plus they will be required to take 48 hours (six working days) worth of furloughs, which means another 2.3-percent pay cut. The benefit of the furlough is that the pay should revert to only a 2.5-percent cut after this biennium, and retirement benefits will be paid on the 2.3-percent cut resulting from the furloughs. At the same time, the merit pool from which performance-based pay enhancements have been allocated in the past, was not funded again. Thus, NSHE professional employees will see a third and fourth consecutive year pass with no cost-of-living increases, performance-based pay increases, or step increase (at the colleges.) Higher education faculty and staff compensation in Nevada will thus fall even farther behind national averages (according to no less than the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce), and we will need to fight hard to make sure the merit pool is reinstated in the near future to keep our state competitive for the best research and instructional talent.

The governor also proposed major changes in health benefits offered through PEBP that went far beyond what the PEBP Board had already been forced to do based on directives from the State Budget Office. AB 553 would have cut retirement subsidies for all future hires, frozen current employees with the current years of service for purposes of subsidies upon retirement, and also cut the subsidy level for many part-time employees significantly (60 percent of the subsidy for those working between one-half and three-quarters FTE). NFA and others worked hard to defeat this bill and succeeded with two of the three items. Future hires will see no subsidy for their health care upon retirement unless future legislatures change this provision.

As you all know by now, PEBP has been changed dramatically effective July 1, with Medicare eligible retirees being shifted off PEBP and into the private market, but with a modest subsidy, something NFA and others fought for very hard. Also, active employees on PEBP will have a new high deductible, no-co-pay plan that is called “consumer driven.” The only part that makes this at all palatable is the establishment of the Heath Savings Accounts (HSAs) for those employees (and somewhat similar accounts, HRAs, for non-Medicare retirees). PEBP will place money in the HSA each year and employees can add to those account through payroll deduction. This money will accumulate each year if not spent and thus represents an opportunity for individuals to save for future health expenses. Faculty members can add to their HSA through payroll deduction, and should consider doing so as a way to save for health related costs in the future.

In conclusion, we can only hope that in the coming biennium, the state economy will stabilize and, more importantly, a consensus will be forged on the need for revenue reform and on adequate funding for quality, affordable higher education. Only if that happens will the next legislative session provide an opportunity to start the rebuilding process for higher education in Nevada.

The agreement reached yesterday by Governor Sandoval and Democratic leaders sets state general fund support for NSHE at the level approved by the legislature on May 24  – which is to invest in the Nevada System of Higher Education an additional $40 million more each year of the biennium than the governor had originally recommended and to replace the $120 million in Clark and Wahoe County property tax revenues with general fund dollars. This means that instead of the original 29-percent cut in state general funds  proposed  by the Governor, the cut will be 15 percent from the 2009 level.

Make no mistake: This is a still a very severe budget cut; the largest of any state agency. And it comes on top of the 20-percent cut from state support in 2009-2010.

The agreement means that the NSHE Chancellor and Regents’ “four point plan” was accepted in large part, so the proposal bore fruit, and offers a guide about how NSHE and its institutions can proceed with restructuring and operating over the next two years.

Things certainly could have been worse, as we all know, but they also could have been better. Fifteen per cent is still the largest  budget cut on any entity for which the state is responsible, and hundreds of faculty and staff positions will still be cut, permanently, though we have some hope that through careful budget planning by administrations (in consultations with faculty leadership) the number of outright layoffs on each campus should be greatly reduced from the worst-case scenarios we have been planning for.

Still, many educational opportunities will be lost for students, thousands of whom will not be able to get classes they need, and student fees will still have to be increased markedly – perhaps as high as 28 percent over the biennium.

Four-Point Plan

NSHE's four point plan has not been widely reported upon and may not have been well understood , so it is worth reviewing the key points here. It is based upon a principle of shared sacrifice among state, students and faculty, and all four points are equally important to achieve fairness and financial stability.

Part one was the “smoothing” that has been discussed, whereby the budget cut is larger in the first year (requiring some internally developed “bridge” funding) and resulting in there being about $35 million more in the base budget at the end of the second year than the governor originally recommended. The smoothing was approved in the budget closing, and was included in today’s budget deal.

Part two of the plan involved a commitment from the Chancellor that NSHE campuses would make a total of $40 million in permanent reductions in operating expenses each year of the next biennium. This means we will have to consider, on a campus-by-campus basis, program reductions, loss of positions and potentially further layoffs. This will be necessary even with the level of funding in the final agreement. But the cuts will have to be deeper if the other points are not adopted as well.

Part three included significant additional contributions from students in the form of additional fee increases of 13 percent each year of the biennium, which amounts to a total increase of 28 percent over 2007 levels. This is a steep increase, but a necessary one. After roughly 15 percent of additional revenue is set aside for financial aid, this point would generate an estimated $21 million in additional revenue in fiscal year 2011-2012 and then an additional $43 million the second year, as the two separate tuition increases were to be compounded. The student leadership agreed reluctantly to support this increase, in an effort to save jobs, classes, and entire programs, and the student leadership reiterated that support in a letter to legislative leaders this week.

However, the closing documents approved last week included only the first 13-percent increase, which the budget committees had voted to cap at a time when they were voting to add back $100 million in state funding – thus covering the hole. Also at that time, the budget committees made clear their intent that a cap in student fees should not result in additional cuts to instructional programs (and thus deeper faculty layoffs), as they were under the impression at the time that NSHE had adequate uncommitted reserves to cover this hole.

In fact, a cap on student fees – as desirable as that might be – still leaves a significant hole in the NSHE budget and shifts the balance in the four-point plan from shared sacrifice to steeper cuts in faculty and staff and thus in instructional programs.

We have urged legislative leadership to reflect the full intent of the budget committees in their communications to the regents, and NFA will call upon the regents to exercise their constitutional autonomy and revisit this issue at their June 16-17 meeting, as they will have to balance the desire to limit fee increases against the impact this loss of funds would have on instructional programs on our campuses. A rough estimate is that the loss of those funds could mean up to 200 more people losing jobs System-wide.

Part four of the Plan was that the State would put in $40 million additional funding each year. This funding is apparently included in the agreement reached yesterday, and for this, we all should be grateful.

Still, the budget includes significant additional sacrifice from faculty and staff:  All faculty and staff will see a 2.5-percent salary cut, plus a 2.3-percent cut in pay due to a six day per year unpaid furlough. Retirement contribution will be paid on the 2.3-percent portion, but not the 2.5-percent salary cut. And the 2.5-percent salary cut will be reduced from base pay. And there will be no COLA or merit pay for another biennium.

There are other aspects of the NSHE budget closing which are worth noting, such as consolidation of accounts, which should give greater authority to campus presidents to prioritize instruction moving forward.

Importantly, there seems to be agreement for the legislature to fund a study of NSHE funding formulas during the interim, an important goal for the entire system.

Some issues remain unresolved. One is the Millennium Scholarship funding, which has yet to be approved. If what the governor recommended is not approved the fund will run out of money within months, which would be a severe problem for many students seeking an education.

Also, the Knowledge Fund that is in AB 449, the economic diversification bill, still has no funds. We can only hope and assume that someone has a method of infusing some funding apart from forcing NSHE institutions to produce the funding needed.

Finally, there are still bills outstanding that would allow NSHE campuses that do not currently maintain reserve accounts to retain year-end money and/or establish a rainy day fund.

Health benefits

PEBP will be cut severely, an action we have long opposed. The element added in yesterday's agreement is to make any staff or faculty (or other state public service workers) hired after January 1, 2012 ineligible to earn any credits at all towards retirement subsidies for health coverage after retirement.  Those individuals will have to rely on personal resources to participate in PEBP or anther health plan after retirement. During their working lifetime they would be expected to accumulate funds in their health savings account for use in their retirement years for health care.

Other PEBP issues were approved as presented by the PEBP Board, so the plan will be considerably different this coming biennium, and Medicare eligible retirees will be shifted off PEBP into the private market, but with at least a modest subsidy.

As the legislature approaches the final days of its 120-day session, the back-and-forth and political positioning around the budget has become both more intense and less worth detailed reporting. The overall situation has changed very little; the System of Higher Education and each of its campuses are certain to sustain significant reductions in state general fund support.

The impact on students, faculty, staff and the state will be painful in ways that have been well-established for months. No one, at any level, should be under any illusion; the outcome will be a step back for Nevada.

The specific form of that detrimental impact will be determined, finally, at the level of the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents (likely at its June meeting) and on each campus – and the NFA will be an active, vigorous and responsible advocate for faculty when those decisions are made. 

In the legislature, the magnitude of cuts and the structure of higher ed financing remain to be determined.

Several important questions seems settled already, and it is worth keeping these realities in mind before entering into any discussion of the legislative "end-game" so hyped by journalists, but which is very unlikely to change any of the following:

• It is near-certain that all NSHE faculty and staff will sustain a 4.8-percent reduction in take-home pay from 2009 levels and some portion of this reduction (at least 2.5 percent) will be a permanent reduction in base pay, with corresponding reduction in retirement contributions. 
• It is even more certain that health coverage for all faculty and staff will be significantly scaled back; and that the premiums, deductibles and co-insurance paid by faculty and staff and their families will rise significantly for all plans, increasing out-of-pocket costs by at least $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for families – beyond the already increased out-of-pocket levels of the last two years.
• Access will be reduced significantly for students, thousands fewer of whom will be able to enroll each year on all campuses (including open-access colleges). For those who are able to enroll, fees will almost certainly increase 13 percent for the coming year and stand a high likelihood of increasing another 13 percent for 2012-2013.
• Academic programs will be eliminated at UNR and UNLV, with the near certainty of faculty being issued terminal contracts (i.e., laid off, effective July 1, 2012) and with the very high likelihood, based on what we know now, that this will include tenured faculty. Faculty layoffs through program review have also been announced by the Western Nevada administration.

Now, as for legislative action of the week:

On Tuesday, as widely reported, the Democratic majority effectively abandoned the compromise budget alternative it had proposed three weeks earlier. That proposal combined significant cutbacks in state spending and significant reforms in state and local government  operations with significant long-term reform of the state's broken revenue structure. For NSHE, this meant that the roughly $100 million in state investment that had been restored as part of that compromise proposal (leaving cuts of $60 million for the coming biennium, thus a total reduction of close to $150 million in state support since 2008) was reduced.

The result was a proposal to cut state investment in higher education for the coming biennium by $80 million, with that hole to be filled by both additional student fee increases and reduced access and program cuts (including layoffs) on campuses. Presuming some unresolved issues concerning how student fees are to be calculated get worked out, and that shortfalls in county property tax revenue will be covered by the state, this proposal closely resembles the revised "4-point plan" proposed by Chancellor Klaich and endorsed by the Board of Regents more than a month ago.

But while the Democratic majorities in both the Assembly and Senate supported this compromise-of-a-compromise, it does not represent a real compromise in the ordinary sense of the word – because the Republican caucuses in both houses still refuse to accept a continuation of current tax rates and are insisting on a roll-back of business and sales taxes to 2007 levels. Because current tax policies enacted in 2009 are set to expire on June 30, 2011, some Republicans must vote to retain current policies for even the compromise-of-a-compromise budget to pass. 

So to resume, the only question that really remains to be decided by the legislature is in the hands of the Republican caucus: Do they support the Governor's proposal, which has become known among higher ed leaders as the "full pain path" (also referred to by some as "burn it to the ground") and whose impact on the state's future has been well documented and decried by students, faculty, and business leaders for months.

Or do they support what they say they have sought: educational reforms such as performance reviews for individual faculty and for degree programs (which are standard operating procedures on all NSHE campuses); reductions in operating expenses; culling of low-yield programs (which have been done at NSHE to a more significant extent than at any public or private entity in the past two years, and are certain to continue for the next two to four years); and higher output of degrees and certificates (which is the case for almost every campus for the past several years).

In short, if the Republicans really want reform, the time has long since passed to stop holding the state's future hostage. And Democrats ought to stop negotiating with themselves, declare that enough is enough, and simply wait for their colleagues to join them in passing a budget that – in all honesty – does little to move the state forward but at the least slows our relative rate of economic and educational decline.