Education funding plans rile Rogers

CARSON CITY -- Chancellor Jim Rogers told the Board of Regents Thursday that Gov. Jim Gibbons' proposed spending cuts for the next two-year budget would require the equivalent of amputations to higher education programs that could never be restored.

The plan to eliminate $96 million a year from projected funding levels for the Nevada System of Higher Education during the 2009-2011 budget is a cut, "in the basic nutrition necessary to keep education alive," he said in a memo.

Rogers said the state now funds higher education at 85 percent to 89 percent of the minimum needed for the system to compete against other "mediocre" college systems. The reductions proposed earlier this month by Gibbons would reduce this amount to 70 percent, he said.

"Seventy percent of essential funding may not close the doors, but it certainly severely wounds the education mission of the system," Rogers said. "For the system to implement these reductions, it must starve itself to death or take such other remedial action that may not kill it, but actions from which recovery is doubtful and long term."

Gibbons' staff outlined the potential reductions earlier this month for the new budget now being developed for the 2009-2011 period.

His spending plan will be presented to lawmakers in January.

Gibbons is seeking reductions of 14 percent from projected spending levels because of the expectation that slumping tax revenues won't recover by the time the new budget takes effect on July 1, 2009.

The state budget office is predicting there will be about $7 billion to spend on the next budget, depending on revenue projections set by the Economic Forum on Dec. 1. That's up from about $6.8 billion originally approved for the current budget, or a 3 percent increase.

State spending, however, normally increases 15 percent to 20 percent from one budget cycle to the next to keep pace with demands for services in a rapidly growing state.

No decision has been made on the cuts, but creating a budget plan based on reduced spending levels allows Gibbons to see what such reductions would mean to various state and education programs.

State officials acknowledge that reductions of this magnitude, coming on top of 4.5 percent cuts in spending in the current budget, could make layoffs and program shutdowns unavoidable.

Public education officials have decried the severity of the proposed reduced spending levels as well.

Rogers outlined some ways the system could make the cuts.

At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, cutting $23.3 million could be accomplished by eliminating the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and the Hotel College, or eliminating the Colleges of Business, Education, Engineering, and Urban Affairs, he said.

Rogers said some other options are to charge students more to go to college, or to have the Legislature and governor enact new taxes, such as a general business tax.

"Surely, we can come together to find a stable funding stream for the years to come," he said. "The 14 percent cut cannot and must not happen in our state and we will all bear the consequences if it does."

Contact Capital Bureau reporter Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.