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NEVADA FACULTY ALLIANCE


ESTABLISHED 1983


NFA News & Opinion

  • 08 Oct 2020 1:00 PM | Kent Ervin (Administrator)

    Nevada Faculty Alliance PAC

    2020 Election Endorsements

    Board of Regents

     

    Regent District 2

    Bret Whipple

     

    Regent District 3

    Swadeep Nigam

     

    Regent District 10

    Joe Arrascada

     

    Senate

     

    SD 1

    Patricia Spearman

    SD   7

    Roberta Lange

     

    SD 3

    Chris Brooks

    SD 11

    Dallas Harris

     

    SD 4

    Dina Neal

    SD 15

    Wendy Jauregui-Jackins

     

    SD 5

    Kristee Watson

    SD 18

    Elizabeth Becker

     

    SD 6

    Nicole Cannizzaro

     

    Assembly

     

    AD   1

    Daniele Monroe-Moreno

    AD 21

    Elaine Marzola

    AD   2

    Radhika Kunnel

    AD 23

    Brent Footz

    AD   3

    Selena Torres

    AD 24

    Sarah Peters

    AD   4

    Connie Munk

    AD 25

    Jill Tolles

    AD   6

    Shondra Summers-Armstrong

    AD 26

    Lisa Krasner

    AD   8

    Jason Frierson

    AD 26

    Teresa Benitez-Thompson

    AD   9

    Steve Yeager

    AD 28

    Edgar Flores

    AD 10

    Rochelle Nguyen

    AD 29

    Lesley Cohen

    AD 11

    Beatrice Duran

    AD 30

    Natha Anderson

    AD 12

    Susan Martinez

    AD 31

    Skip Daly

    AD 14

    Maggie Carlton

    AD 34

    Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod

    AD 15

    Howard Watts III

    AD 35

    Michelle Gorelow

    AD 16

    Cecelia González

    AD 37

    Shea Backus

    AD 17

    Clara Thomas

    AD 41

    Sandra Jauregui

    AD 18

    Veneicia Considine

    AD 42

    Alexander Assefa

    AD 20

    David Orrentlicher

    The Nevada Faculty Alliance (www.nevadafacultyalliance.org) is an affiliate of the American Association of University Professors (www.aaup.org), whose mission is to advance academic freedom, enhance shared governance, and promote the economic security of faculty and graduate students. The NFA membership includes academic and administrative faculty at all eight institutions of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The NFA Political Action Committee, which is comprised of NFA members in northern and southern Nevada, is proud to make these political endorsements. We will be encouraging the winning candidates to fight with us to address the various issues related to higher education in Nevada.


  • 13 Sep 2020 6:13 PM | Kent Ervin (Administrator)

    The Nevada Faculty Alliance has endorsed the following Northern Nevada candidates:

    NSHE Board of Regents:

    District 10 Joseph Arrascada (NP)

    Nevada State Senate:

    District 15 Wendy Jauregui-Jackins (D)

    Nevada State Assembly:

    Sarah Peters (D) (incumbent)

    Jill Tolles (R) (incumbent)

    Lisa Krasner (R) (incumbent)

    Teresa Benitez-Thompson (D) (incumbent)

    Natha Anderson (D)

    Skip Daly (D) (incumbent)

    -------------------------------------------

    Approved by the NFA State Political Action Committee on August 29, 2020. The Nevada Faculty Alliance (www.nevadafacultyalliance.org) is an affiliate of the American Association of University Professors (www.aaup.org), whose mission is to advance academic freedom, enhance shared governance, and promote the economic security of faculty and graduate students. The NFA membership includes academic and administrative faculty at all eight institutions of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The NFA Political Action Committee, which is comprised of NFA members in northern and southern Nevada, is proud to make these political endorsements. We will be encouraging the winning candidates to fight with us to address the various issues related to higher education in Nevada.

  • 14 Oct 2018 11:41 AM | Deleted user


  • 25 Sep 2018 8:18 PM | Deleted user
    CSN FACULTY SENATE OVERWHELMINGLY URGES CSN TO HONOR BARGAINING AGREEMENT

    On Friday Sept 14, CSN Faculty Senate voted by a margin of 28-3 to urge CSN to honor all settled tentative agreements.

    NFA President Robert Manis explained to Senate how in August, CSN had approached NFA with an offer to end the bargaining impasse by offering an approximate $1000/ person bonus which could be split into two parts, along with raises in summer pay,  B+ contracts, overload pay, and clinical hours.

     However, hours before NFA could consider this proposal, CSN stated it was withdrawing from an agreement settled a year ago to allow market hires a path to tenure for the reason that it modified NSHE code.  Revoking a settled TA is a virtually unprecedented violation of labor law.  The reason is that if a previously settled tentative agreement is allowed to be revoked, all the others (of which CSN and NFA have settled 15) could be held hostage for leverage on other issues, lab hours being one of the major ones outstanding

     Moreover, NSHE TItle 4, Chapter 4 Section 13.2-3 specifically allows the modification of code by collective bargaining contracts. Furthermore, prior to making the agreement, NFA showed how market hires were paid less than faculty and in fact were, in many cases, not offered the chance to choose the tenure track option, which is itself a violation of code.

     The significant issue, however, is whether any agreement, once settled, can be held hostage for leverage. In fact, what then would prevent CSN from renouncing their latest offer if this is allowed to stand?

     

  • 14 Jul 2018 8:12 PM | Deleted user

    Bargaining at CSN reached impasse as CSN continued its refusal to bargain over salary in violation of labor law. The process now moves to fact-finding. For more info see the following article.

    https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/csn-faculty-trying-to-negotiate-a-pay-raise-hit-impasse-with-administration

  • 17 Jun 2018 11:26 AM | Deleted user

    On June 8th, the Nevada Faculty Alliance imposed a deadline for the College of Southern Nevada to make significant progress towards agreement on matters related to compensation, by midnight June 30.

    These compensation-related items include lab pay, overload pay, and pay equity (compression adjustments which have historically been funded at the institutional level.

    It's the opinion of  our lawyers at the NFA’s national affiliate the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) that the failure to make any tangible counter-offer on these topics constitute “bad faith”  surface bargaining, an Unfair Labor Practice.

    During the same time period, the NFA will decide whether to file an unfair labor practice in District Court, or to declare an Impasse and refer the matter to a Fact-finder as provided in Nevada System of Higher Education code, should there be no agreement or significant enough progress.

    The college claims it has no money to make any agreement, which NFA disputes. They have also falsely alleged to the Chancellor and Legislators that NFA has asked for merit pay and/or Cost of living allowances funded by the legislature which is also untrue.  

    NFA hopes that the imposition of a deadline will make the college take the compensation issues more seriously, since there’s been no progress even after 19 months. Should they not, having done our research, we expect success whether through the Courts or Fact-finding.
  • 19 Feb 2018 10:29 AM | Deleted user

    Updates can be found on the negotiations blog: https://nfacsnnegotiations.blogspot.com/

  • 06 Dec 2017 4:05 PM | Deleted user

    Kent Ervin, NFA Legislative Liaison, provides the following update regarding PEBP benefits changes for 2018-2019:

    A summary of the Public Employees’ Benefits Program Board actions from the November board meeting is available on the PEBP website.  The Board accepted most all of Executive Officer Damon Haycock's recommendations for plan year 2019 changes, effective July 1, 2018.  That includes (1) replacing the northern HMO with an Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO) with similar features and using over $10M of excess reserves generated by the High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) to cover the associated increased risks for self-funding the EPO; and (2) not approving a $1 or $2/month per year of service additional employer contribution to the HRA (Health Reimbursement Account) for retirees on the Medicare Exchange. These two items were linked in the staff recommendation to the board because the extra reserves allocated for the EPO did not leave enough funds for increasing the HRA contribution for Medicare retirees.  Also, the board expanded PEBP's subrogation powers via regulation (although with coverage of the participant's out-of-pocket costs from any recovery). Several minor enhancements to the HDHP were approved as outlined in the summary. Additional requirements were added for “earning” the supplemental $200/year HSA/HRA contribution for HDHP participants. Other proposed HDHP plan benefits or increased HSA/HRA contributions were rejected, also because of potential costs of the EPO.


    NFA’s positions on these issues are available in our public comments to the PEBP Board posted at http://www.nevadafacultyalliance.org/LatestNews. In particular, NFA spoke against using excess reserves generated by the HDHP program and participants to establish the new EPO plan.


    The northern HMO/EPO decision is essentially irrevocable because the northern HMO contract will be terminated in January effective June 30, 2018.  The other decisions are not quite set in stone because the final rates and plan features will be addressed at the January and March board meetings.  NFA recommends that you review the plan design changes and make your opinions known:


    Dr. Chris Cochran chris.cochran@unlv.edu (southern NSHE representative on PEBP Board)

    Dr. John Packham  jpackham@med.unr.edu (northern NSHE representative on PEBP Board)

    Patrick Cates pcates@admin.nv.gov (PEBP Board Chair)

    Damon Haycock  dhaycock@peb.state.nv.gov (PEBP Executive Officer)


  • 29 Nov 2017 2:16 PM | Deleted user

    The following testimony was provided to the PEBP Board by NFA Legislative Liaison Kent Ervin, on behalf of NFA:

    The Nevada Faculty Alliance (NFA) is the statewide association of faculty at all eight NSHE institutions, most of whom participate in the Public Employees’ Benefits Program along with other state employees. We are the state affiliate of the American Association of University Professors.

    The NFA appreciates the efforts of PEBP to protect program interests via subrogation efforts when a third party may be responsible for medical expenses incurred by PEBP. We also strongly agree with the part of the regulation that says the out-of-pocket medical costs for the participant should be covered first and in whole from any recovery.

    We are however concerned that the subrogation actions by the lawyers hired by Healthscope can at times be overly aggressive, particularly when the party being pursued is the participant or a close relative or their own insurance companies. When a participant buys homeowners or automotive liability insurance, they are doing it to protect themselves, not to protect PEBP or to lower PEBP premiums for others. The examples provided in the Board packet sound innocuous—involving traffic accidents with an unrelated third party at fault. However, the proposed regulations allow subrogation actions against, say, the grandmother of a PEBP participant’s covered child when a simple accident (neither intentional nor negligent) occurred in her home. Should PEBP and by extension the State as employer really be pursuing such a case? It is questionable whether the applicable statute actually was intended to apply to first party coverage, since it refers to legal liability rather than contractual liability created by purchase of an insurance policy.

    We recommend that the Board restrict the subrogation efforts to third party coverages only. A minimum alternative would be to create a policy to evaluate the merit of cases against participants or their close relatives. The decision to pursue a subrogation case should not be primarily based on money potential by Healthscope’s “vendors”—their hired lawyers—as it is described on page 12 of the Health Claims Auditors report (agenda item 4.3).

    Thank you. 


  • 29 Nov 2017 2:15 PM | Deleted user

    The following testimony was provided to the PEBP Board by NFA Legislative Liaison Kent Ervin, on behalf of NFA:

    The Nevada Faculty Alliance (NFA) is the statewide association of faculty at all eight NSHE institutions, most of whom participate in the Public Employees’ Benefits Program along with other state employees.

    The NFA greatly appreciates the hard work of the PEBP staff and the PEBP Board to maintain our health insurance program in the face of rising costs and budgetary constraints. It is a difficult task to balance diverse interests in a program with many moving targets.

    Regarding the HMO options (agenda item 10), we recommend caution. Although we understand that the HMO option is in distress due to rapidly rising costs, it is difficult to evaluate the proposed self-funded Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO) alternative because neither estimates of the rates nor the methodology to set the rates have been provided. The Board should ask for a better understanding before proceeding. We are also concerned about the rushed implementation of an entirely new program.

    Our biggest reservation is that the higher risks requiring a $10M to $15M increase in the Catastrophic Reserves are proposed to be absorbed by Excess Reserves from the CDHP program. Those Excess Reserves were created on the shoulders of CDHP participants and, arguably, retirees who were moved along with their higher risk pool to the Medicare Exchange. The Excess Reserves from the CDHP should not be used to fund the Catastrophic Reserves for a new EPO plan. Instead, if an EPO is implemented, it should be priced to fund its own share of the Catastrophic Reserves over an appropriate phase-in period of several years. To reduce the rate impact, the confidence level for the EPO catastrophic reserves could be phased in, reaching the desirable 95% level after a few years. That is what would necessarily happen with a completely new self-funded program, or if there were no excess reserves in another program. The existing Catastrophic Reserve does provide a buffer in case of poor EPO experience during the phase-in period.

    Thank you. 


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