Funding option floated

In his effort to save higher education from threatened budget cuts, Chancellor Jim Rogers has proposed raising taxes, tapping into the state's rainy day fund -- even diverting highway transportation funding to the university system.

None of those ideas has caught fire yet. So on Friday he brought forward a new idea: having cities and counties pay for a portion of their local community colleges.

In another memo to Gov. Jim Gibbons on Friday that outlined what 8 percent budget cuts might do to the state's community colleges and state college, Rogers stated he will write to Nevada county commissioners and city leaders next week to solicit feedback on the idea.

"I'm doing a lot of fishing, and I'm hoping to catch some fish," he said Friday. Rogers said he doesn't have any details on the idea or how it might be implemented. He's just offering it up with all of his other ideas, which so far haven't been able to sway Gibbons away from cutting the higher education budget.

Having counties pay for their local community colleges isn't a new idea, but it could be an enormously complicated task.

It would require the complete overhaul of the Legislature's already complicated higher education funding formula, which could lead to more taxes.

And it could result in changing the scope and geographical areas of Nevada's six community colleges, some of which stretch beyond county and city lines.

Gibbons requested a list of possible budget cuts from most state agencies because of lower-than-expected tax revenues.

Should the higher education system cuts go through, they could hurt community college services statewide, according to college officials.

In an attachment to Rogers' memo, officials from Western Nevada College warned cutting its budget by 8 percent would force the closure of its Douglas County campus, its high-tech center in Carson City and four rural centers in Yerington, Hawthorne, Fernley and Lovelock.

And officials from the College of Southern Nevada said the college could be forced to close various "learning sites," many of which are on high school campuses.

Rogers said having local counties pay for their community colleges would benefit the colleges and their respective counties. Now, the Nevada Legislature funds all of the state's higher education system.

The notion is that community colleges, more so than universities, focus on community needs -- providing nursing and work force training -- and therefore should be funded by their communities instead of the entire state.

Other states, including Arizona, have adopted such funding structures.

The Maricopa County Community College system, with 10 campuses throughout the Phoenix area and roughly 200,000 students taking courses for credit, receives 43 percent of its funding through property taxes from county residents, according to college spokesman Tom Gariepy.

The rest of its funding comes from student tuition and fees, grants and other sources. Just 8 percent of its funding comes from the state.

"Fundamentally, our service area is for Maricopa County, so Maricopa County residents pay for it," Gariepy said.

But that structure could prove difficult and complicated to apply in Nevada, where some colleges cover massive geographical areas. WNC, for example, has sites in five counties and Carson City.

Rogers' idea was met with reluctance by some elected officials.

Washoe County Commission Chairman Robert Larkin said the chancellor should focus on pitching the idea to legislators instead of local officials because legislators are the ones who control the higher education budget.

"If the state Legislature wants to open that up as a dialogue point with local governments ... I think, speaking as an individual commissioner, I might be interested in that," Larkin said.

But he said the idea could create a problem by having residents taxed twice for college funding -- through state taxes and local taxes.

Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid didn't return calls seeking comment.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said she didn't have enough information to comment on the merits of the proposal, but said it would be a "complex undertaking," requiring coordination from multiple state and local boards and agencies.

Instead of that undertaking, the budget cuts could be avoided through some belt-tightening by the university system and by using the money in the state's rainy day fund, an idea that Rogers has trumpeted but Gibbons has turned down.

"I call it almost a no-brainer," she said. "I'm appalled it's not happening."

Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0440.