Public Comment, Joint Senate Finance and Assembly Ways & Means Committees, 2/21/2023

by Kent Ervin, State President, Nevada Faculty Alliance

Re: Nevada System of Higher Education Budget

The Nevada Faculty Alliance is the independent statewide association of professional employees at NSHE. Along with our national partners, the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, we work to advance higher education for the common good.

Higher education fosters a responsible citizenry, promotes upward social and economic mobility, and trains the workforce for Nevada’s economic advancement. Our public colleges and universities are the talent pathway for workforce development. That includes not only career and technical training for trades, but also the professional workforce education for Nevada’s future—teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers, scientists, accountants, managers, policy-makers, journalists, writers, and so forth.

There has been a long-term trend, both nationally and in Nevada, of lower state support for public higher education and higher student fees and tuition.  Between FY2007 and FY2022 in Nevada, state-appropriated funding per student FTE (full-time-equivalent) declined by 34% after inflation (including the federal ARPA funds used to restore positions in FY2022 ).  During the same period, resident student fees per student FTE increased 65% above inflation. (Please see the chart of state and student revenues per student FTE on page 2.)  The contribution to the total cost from the state per student has declined from about two-thirds to one-half.

The Governor’s recommended budget brings NSHE’s state-appropriated base budget back to FY2019 levels, which bakes in those long-term declines.  It restores the 12% cuts to operating budgets in the current biennium. The additional funding for graduate teaching assistantships is important—their current stipends are below subsistence levels.  We also appreciate the one-time funding to cover pandemic-related enrollment declines at CSN, GBC, and TMCC.  However, we have to point out that the operating budget does not address the high inflation over the past two years, so we will still be stretching to do more with less. 

We are encouraged that the Governor has proposed a study of the funding formula. With a $5M price tag, the study should not only study the costs of providing courses, but also the support that today’s students need and the resources required to provide higher education for the common good and Nevada’s economic future.

Thank you.

On an inflation-adjusted basis, state-appropriated funding per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student fell by 34% from FY2007 to FY2022, while resident registration fees rose 65% above inflation. Revenues per student FTE from non-resident tuition and self-supported program fees were about flat over the same period after inflation.

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The Nevada Faculty Alliance is the statewide independent association of professional employees at the colleges and universities of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The NFA is affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers/AFL-CIO, which represent over 300,000 higher education professionals in North America. The NFA advocates for higher education as a common good, academic freedom, and improving the working conditions of NSHE professional employees.

Contact: Kent Ervin, NFA State President, kent.ervin@nevadafacultyalliance.org, 775-453-6837

Public Comment, Joint Senate Finance and Assembly Ways & Means Committees, 2/17/2023

by Kent Ervin, State President, Nevada Faculty Alliance

Re: Public Employees’ Benefits Program Budget

The Nevada Faculty Alliance is the independent statewide association of professional employees at Nevada’s public colleges and universities. We work to empower our members to be fully engaged in our mission to help students succeed.

To be fully engaged, state employees need robust health care benefits to keep healthy and productive The Public Employees’ Benefits Program is essential for recruiting and retaining state employees. While uncompetitive salaries are the most pressing concern of our members, benefits are next.

PEBP benefits were drastically cut after the Great Recession. We slowly clawed some of them back just to have benefits cut again during the pandemic. Now that the state’s economy and revenues are roaring back, the benefits should be fully restored to pre-pandemic FY2020 levels:

• Restore Long-Term Disability Insurance, which was completely eliminated.
• Restore basic Life Insurance, which was cut by 40%.
• Restore pre-pandemic deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket maximums.
• Restore pre-pandemic employee premiums, which were raised by 50%.

We also support raising the Medicare retiree contributions to Health Reimbursement Accounts to cover Medigap insurance inflation, as proposed by AFSCME Retirees and RPEN.

Longer term, state funding of the employee health insurance plan has not kept up.  As shown in the chart on the next page, the total rate for the basic high-deductible plan for state employees (single-employee tier) has increased only 8% over the dozen years from FY2011 to FY2023, while average per-capita health care costs have risen 69%.  Only about 66% of the average cost of health care for an individual is now covered by the PEBP premium. Although PEPB has instituted some cost-saving efficiencies, largely the additional burden is falling as higher out-of-pocket medical and prescription expenses on the employees who are most vulnerable—employees who have chronic conditions and need treatment to remain productive on the job, employees who suffer a major health crisis in a year, and employees who become total disabled because of an injury or diagnoses but now have no income safety net after the elimination of Long-Term Disability Insurance.

Thank you.

Before 2014, the PEBP plan premium matched the average per capita cost of health care, but now it only covers about 66%.  State employees are paying higher out-of-pocket medical and prescription costs.

Source: PEBP annual rate tables, CMS National Health Expenditures Tables, AON 2023 Global Medical Trends Report.

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The Nevada Faculty Alliance is the statewide independent association of professional employees at the colleges and universities of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The NFA is affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers/AFL-CIO, which represent over 300,000 higher education professionals in North America. The NFA advocates for higher education as a common good, academic freedom, and improving the working conditions of NSHE professional employees.

Contact: Kent Ervin, NFA State President, kent.ervin@nevadafacultyalliance.org, 775-453-6837

Public Comment, Joint Senate Finance and Assembly Ways & Means Committees, 2/13/2023

by Kent Ervin, NFA State President

The Nevada Faculty Alliance is the independent statewide association of professional employees at Nevada’s public colleges and universities. We work to empower our members to be fully engaged in our mission to help students succeed.

All of our classified colleagues at NSHE and about 15% of faculty are members of PERS. Faculty on NSHE’s retirement plan alternative receive the same contribution amounts as PERS per statute. The retirement plan is essential for recruiting and retaining state employees.

Nevada PERS has one of the strongest investment programs in the country.  Using a disciplined approach with low-cost investments and a lean investment staff, PERS has exceeded its investment goals and market benchmarks over the long term.  

Nevada PERS’s unfunded liability percentage is about in the middle among the 50 states. In 2021, PERS’s actuaries took a deep dive into the assumptions and changed them to be more fiscally conservative. That was the responsible thing to do but it is the primary reason that the PERS contribution rate is going up next year.  This will put PERS on a firmer footing over the next decades.  But like getting a shorter-term mortgage and increasing monthly payments, it increases the pain now to pay off the debt faster. Fortunately, this increase is happening at a time when the state budget can absorb the increase.

With uncompetitive salaries and cuts to health care benefits, the retirement program is the one positive left for state employees, but the retirement contributions have become a further drag on state employee salaries.  The State should cover more of the PERS contribution for its employees, as do many of the local governmental employers. Thank you, Chair Monroe-Moreno, for asking for options.

Finally, we support PERS’s budget enhancement requests to keep the retirement system functioning well.

Summary of the Governor’s Recommended Budget for FY2024-FY2025

for NSHE Professional Employees

Nevada Faculty Alliance, 2/11/2023

The Governor’s budget is the starting point for legislative action. The Nevada Faculty Alliance is advocating for improvements in compensation and benefits for NSHE professionals and all state employees.

COMPENSATION

• Cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) of 8% on 7/1/2023 and 4% on 7/1/2024.
• “Retention bonuses” of $500 per quarter, 1/1/2023 through 6/30/2025.
• NSHE CFO Andrew Clinger confirmed that the COLAs and the retention bonuses include NSHE classified and professional employees (Board of Regents, 2/3/2023, audio at 1:04:01).
• Increased retirement plan contributions of 2% for the employee and 2% for the employer on 7/1/2023, offsetting the first-year COLA. For PERS members, pay is reduced by 2% with no change in retirement benefits. For employees on the NSHE retirement plan alternative, take-home pay is reduced by 2% but contributions into the 401a account are increased by 4% of salary.

BENEFITS

The Public Employee Benefits Program will largely have the same plan design as for FY2023, which represents a partial restoration of the drastic cuts to PEBP benefits during the pandemic. Major differences for the next biennium versus the pre-pandemic FY2020 plan include:

• Elimination of Long-Term Disability Insurance (leaving no safety net for faculty who have no Social Security Disability and no PERS early disability retirement).
• Reduction of the HSA contribution for the employee from $700 to $600 and elimination of the $200 per dependent HSA contribution (high-deductible plan).
• Reduction of basic life insurance by 40% from $25000 to $15000 for active employees.
• Increased co-pays, a new $100 deductible, and 20% co-insurance for some services for the HMO/EPO plans.
• An increase of the annual dental maximum from $1500 to $2000.
• Addition of a cancer concierge service (expected to produce cost savings).

The low-deductible plan added in FY2023 will be continued. Employee premium contributions are unknown until the March PEBP rate-setting meeting but are not expected to rise dramatically.

NSHE BUDGET

• Restores the 12% operating budget cuts from the last session due to the pandemic ($74M).
• Negative enrollment caseload reductions of $16M are offset by $14.2M in one-time funds to CSN, GBC, and TMCC for enrollment recovery and to UNR for Sierra Nevada University enrollment
• $9.2M enhancement to UNLV Medical School for class size increase.
• $20M budget enhancement for graduate assistant stipends at UNLV and UNR.
• $2M for added WSCH formula state support for summer school courses for teacher education.
• No major building capital projects are funded for NSHE. A total of $70M for deferred maintenance and infrastructure.
• For the seven formula-funded instructional budgets (CSN, GBC, NSC, TMCC, UNLV, UNR, & WNC), the state-appropriated funding resources will decline from pre-pandemic levels after considering inflation and increased retirement and benefits contributions.
• Further details are in the NSHE Budget Overview.

www.nevadafacultyalliance.org

Contact: Kent Ervin, kent.ervin@nevadafacultyalliance.org

Public Comment, Legislative Commission Budget Subcommittee, 1/27/2023

By Kent Ervin, State President, Nevada Faculty Alliance

The Nevada Faculty Alliance is the independent statewide association of professional employees at NSHE colleges and universities. This is our 40th anniversary year. Since 1983, we have been working to empower our members to be fully engaged in our mission to help student succeed.

We are encouraged by the Governor’s recommended budget for NSHE.  The restoration of the pandemic cuts to operating budgets is essential. The boost to graduate assistant stipends is essential for their progress toward degrees. The other enhancements are important. NFA strongly supports full funding of the Governor’s budget for NSHE, to provide for the workforce pipeline for Nevada including career and technical education but also professional teachers, nurses, engineers, scientists, doctors, dentists, accountants, managers, lawyers, public-health & hospitality workers, policy-makers, future faculty, and so on.

But GovRec does not fix the long-term sustainability of higher education for Nevada’s students. The funding per Weighted Student Credit Hour in the report just presented is 6% lower than in FY2020 after adjusting for inflation. That degradation of WSCH funding puts pressure on NSHE to raise student fees, which no one wants. Therefore, we also support the study of the funding formula to provide for sustainably for higher education as a common good.

State employment is in crisis with unprecedented vacancy rates. At NSHE, we can’t keep faculty and staff. The overall turnover rate is 14%/year. The woefully inadequate compensation for state employees including NSHE faculty and professional staff must be addressed.  The 8% + 4% Cost of Living Adjustment in GovRec is a good start. But comparisons with our peers indicate the COLA needs to be more than doubled just to bring salaries up to average. We must support our human capital. 

Thank you.

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The Nevada Faculty Alliance is the statewide independent association of professional employees at the colleges and universities of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The NFA is affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers/AFL-CIO. The NFA/AAUP represents faculty collective bargaining units at the College of Southern Nevada, Truckee Meadows Community College, and Western Nevada College, with advocacy chapters at Great Basin College, Nevada State College, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Nevada, Reno. The NFA advocates for higher education as a common good, academic freedom, and empowering our members to be fully engaged in our mission to help students succeed.

The Nevada Faculty Alliance thanks Governor Sisolak and the Interim Finance Committee for approving repayment of faculty and staff furlough salary cuts in Spring 2021, and has sent a letter of thanks to the NSHE System and NSHE Payroll Services at Business Center North for processing the repayments on an accelerated schedule to get the checks out today (Dec. 23), before the winter break. The NFA has advocated for compensation and benefits cuts to be restored using federal American Rescue Plan Act funds for many months, since the federal funds were announced in March-April 2021. 

The NFA congratulations and welcomes the newly elected members of the Board of Regents.  We look forward to working with them in our mission to empower faculty members to help students succeed, to advance affordable higher education, to promote academic freedom and shared governance, and to use collective bargaining to help achieve these goals.

• RD 6  Heather Brown
• RD 7 Susan Brager
• RD 8 Shelly Crawford
• RD 11 Jeffrey Downs
• RD 13 Stephanie Goodman

For members' convenience, we have collected the responses of the winning candidates to our pre-election questionnaire here:

New Regents' Responses to 2022 NFA Candidate Questionnaire

While we don't agree with every position of every new Regents, we know they all support higher education as a common good and we appreciate that they have all engaged with the NFA.

Final election results:

University Board of Regents, District 6

Candidate	Votes
Brown, Heather (NP)	44,477 (62.6% )
Dakduk, Jeanine (NP)	26,569 (37.4% )
Total Votes	71,046

University Board of Regents, District 7

Candidate	Votes
Brager, Susan (NP)	41,710 (58.4% )
Crete, David "Coach" (NP)	29,764 (41.6% )
Total Votes	71,474

University Board of Regents, District 8

Candidate	Votes
Crawford, Michelee "Shelly" (NP)	38,307 (54.1% )
Rice, John Patrick (NP)	32,485 (45.9% )
Total Votes	70,792

University Board of Regents, District 11

Candidate	Votes
Downs, Jeffrey (NP)	34,560 (54.1% )
Laden, Steve (NP)	29,350 (45.9% )
Total Votes	63,910

University Board of Regents, District 13

Candidate	Votes
Goodman, Stephanie (NP)	42,091 (60.6% )
Moran, John (NP)	27,366 (39.4% )
Total Votes	69,457

The Nevada Faculty Alliance Political Action and Governmental Relations committees have vetted candidates for office in the 2022 General Election through questionnaires, interviews, and other research. The NFA-PAC endorses candidates who share our values and who support higher education as a common good, college and university affordability, academic freedom, and faculty rights including collective bargaining.  Please vote for our endorsed candidates!

2022 NFA Endorsement List (pdf)

For further information about individual candidates, you can view their responses to NFA's candidate questionnaires:

• Statewide and Federal Offices
• Board of Regents
• Nevada Assembly and Senate

Mail-in ballots are distributed in early to mid-October (depending on county), early voting is October 22 to November 4, and Election Day is November 8.

What's My District? (Address Lookup)

Check or update voter registration

UPDATE: 2022 NFA Endorsements

The Nevada Faculty Alliance sent a questionnaire to candidates for Nevada Assembly and Nevada Senate.  Their responses to questions about higher education and faculty issues  are in the table linked below.  We encourage NFA members to consider candidates' positions on higher education when you decide how to vote in the general election.  

What's My 2022 District? (address look-up)

Legislative Candidate Response Table (pdf)   (updated 9/11/2022)

The table is ordered by Assembly District number, then Senate District number.  Blank boxes indicate no response for that question. Missing candidates mean they have not responded to our questionnaire.

UPDATE: 2022 NFA Endorsements

The Nevada Faculty Alliance sent questionnaires to major-party candidates for statewide and federal offices in Nevada.  We asked just a few questions on matters of importance for higher education and faculty. The candidates' responses are below. We encourage NFA members to take candidates' views on higher education issues, and their responsiveness to NFA's questionnaire, into account when making decisions for the General Election.

Governor

Steve Sisolak

Attorney General

Aaron Ford

Sigal Chattah

Secretary of State

Cisco Aguilar

Treasurer

Zach Conine

Controller

Ellen Spiegel

Congress District 1

Dina Titus

Congress District 3

Susie Lee

Look Up Your Congressional District Here

(Any additional responses will be posted when received.)