Per-credit fees boosted at some Nevada colleges

Per-credit fees will be increased at some Nevada colleges and faculty merit pay will be slashed in half next year, the Board of Regents decided Monday.

Regents voted for the changes despite resistance from UNLV faculty leaders and concerns that students didn't have a chance to respond to the fee increases, which university officials call a "fee surcharge" and will be applied beginning in the fall.

"It's a tax on our students," complained Regent Steve Sisolak, who voted against the proposal.

At the University of Nevada, Reno, students will pay a fee increase of $5 per credit, or $75 per semester for a typical full-time student taking 15 credits.

Students at the College of Southern Nevada will see fees rise by $4.50 per credit. The state's two rural community colleges and Truckee Meadows Community College, in Reno, will increase fees by $2.75 per credit.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Nevada State College in Henderson did not propose raising fees.

The fee hikes are just one step in a series of money-saving moves by university officials to enact Gov. Jim Gibbons' mandated 4.5 percent budget cuts. The governor has ordered the cuts to make up for less-than-anticipated state tax revenues.

In addition to raising fees at most colleges, university system faculty and administrators who earn merit pay next year will receive only half of that designated pay. Merit pay is awarded to exemplary professors.

Faculty leaders at UNR and CSN endorsed the idea, believing that faculty should pitch in when students are facing fee hikes.

But UNLV Faculty Senate Chairman Bryan Spangelo argued that the cut in merit pay unfairly punished the university's highest-performing faculty.

Together, the two measures will save the university system roughly $9.5 million, or more than 16 percent of the $57 million it needs to cut over the next year and a half.

Regents on Monday also decided to give back to the Legislature $10 million the system was awarded last year for the iNtegrate project, a statewide effort to overhaul its technology departments.

System officials will ask legislators for the $10 million back during the next session, in 2009, regents said.

However, regents shot down a proposal to give back $4 million of the more than $90 million it received last year for the Health Sciences System, a statewide effort to coordinate the system's seven colleges and universities with the private sector to improve medical care and research in Nevada.

University system Chancellor Jim Rogers said the move would have discouraged several potential donors to the program he is courting.

Few people seemed happy with the decisions made during the five-hour meeting at UNLV, and a few regents chose to lash out at the governor.

"I think we've been bamboozled," said Regent Cedric Crear, who voted to accept the plans to deal with the cuts. "Those who have voted for Governor Gibbons have been fleeced of their vote."

State Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, told regents at the beginning of the meeting that Gibbons, who has resisted efforts to raise taxes to make up for the state's budget shortfall, was "trapped by his ideology."

"I am truly sorry, from the bottom of my heart, that you have to be in this situation," Coffin said.

But the university system's financial system doesn't appear nearly as dire as it did when Gibbons first proposed 8 percent budget cuts.

Indeed, at UNR, the cuts appear to have forced the university to be far more efficient.

Officials there will eliminate an entire college, streamline administration and make faculty more entrepreneurial by seeking funding from competitive grants.

"I view this not just as a budget reduction, but as a strategic repositioning of the university," UNR President Milton Glick said.

But there are some drawbacks, Glick said. The university will delay opening its Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center by another year, and requiring more faculty to seek out competitive grants means those faculty will be spending less time in the classroom, Glick said.

Statewide, universities and colleges will institute hiring freezes and cancel searches for dozens of positions. Many will also divert maintenance funds to operating budgets.

Sisolak said he was concerned with university system spending and encouraged college presidents to look at limiting administrative budgets, host accounts and the amount of money given for student governments to spend.

But the issue of raising student fees, despite tuition rates in Nevada being among the least expensive in the nation, rankled some regents.

"We want to sock it to them (students) again?" asked Regent Jack Lund Schofield, who voted against cutback plan.

Students are supposed to pay only the additional fees for the fall 2008 and spring 2009 semesters, after which presidents could ask to have the fees extended into future years.

Sisolak worried that the new fees would become permanent. He cited the technology fee instituted eight years ago that students are still paying.

However, it's possible college presidents could decide to back away from fee increases. The $10 million for the iNtegrate project regents decided to give back to the Legislature decreases the total financial burden on the universities to $47 million from $57 million.

Sisolak said he hoped the presidents would use that relief to do away with the fee hikes, but he wasn't optimistic.

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