Nevada’s higher education funding formula comes under fire

CARSON CITY — The Nevada System of Higher Education’s chancellor found himself Friday inside a hornet’s nest of angry legislators who expressed disgust over the lack of state funds their local colleges and universities would receive under a new formula.

While Dan Klaich said the formula is designed to bring fairness and equity and lead to higher graduation rates, he added it might work better if higher education was funded at pre-recession levels.

Under the governor’s proposed budget, higher education would receive $946.5 million in state support over the two-year period that starts in July, a 5.9 percent increase over the current two-year budget. But state support for higher education was $1.316 billion in 2007-09.

The new formula, in particular, would reduce funding for Western Nevada College in Carson City, Great Basin College in Elko and Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, while allocating more funds to schools in Southern Nevada.

The three rural and Northern Nevada community colleges will lose a combined $11 million a year in state funds, while College of Southern Nevada gains
$5.4 million a year and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, $3.3 million.

The Sandoval budget proposal also would give no money to colleges for courses in which students earn F grades, unless it could be shown they are attending classes and trying to pass the courses.

“We made revisions to the formula to provide fairness and equity, not to address (funding) adequacy,” Klaich said. “We did what we thought was right.”

But former Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, passionately criticized the drop in rural college funding and called for a separate rural Nevada system of higher education.

“Great Basin College won’t be able to function,” Carpenter said of the pending cuts. “We are asking for a hold-harmless budget.”

Such a budget would give the rural colleges the $11 million they are losing at least for the next two years.

Soon after the Sandoval budget was released in January, Sen. Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, complained the budget was designed to force rural Nevada legislators to support higher taxes so that rural colleges would be adequately funded. But Klaich said Friday there was “no ulterior motive.”

In response to a question, Klaich mentioned that the pattern in other states is to fund community colleges through one-third state support, one-third local support and one-third tuition and fee support. In Nevada, support largely comes from the state.

His statement received no response.

Local governments themselves have made cuts and layoffs in response to the recession.

But rural legislators were not the only ones complaining Friday.

Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairwoman Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, expressed disgust because the University of Nevada, Reno, over the past couple of years, dramatically reduced funding for the statewide Cooperative Extension program. Most of those funds were taken from Southern Nevada and used to fund academic programs at UNR, she said.

“Those monies were swept and used in Northern Nevada,” Carlton said. “What we are going to have is institutions competing against each other. It is OK to have basketball and football team rivalries, but not over funds by the various institutions.”

At one point in the hearing, Klaich joked about his “ability to irritate everyone in the state.”

Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, said the hearing was meant to determine whether the funds given to universities and colleges are being fairly distributed under the new formula. Other meetings will deal with whether they are adequately funded.

“They have taken some huge cuts in recent years. They would like to get back to those (previous) levels.”

He said that in coming months legislators have to address whether colleges and universities, public schools and everything else in state government are properly funded.

He believes there is support for holding harmless the colleges that would lose money under the new formula.

“That is a question we have to ask ourselves. I think there is support to find ways to do it,” Denis said.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.