LETTERS: Keep community colleges under Nevada System of Higher Education

Since the official end of the Great Recession, the Nevada System of Higher Education and its eight institutions have experienced significant funding cuts totaling roughly $200 million. Under the guidance of the Board of Regents and Chancellor Dan Klaich, the state’s public colleges and universities made the cuts necessary to live within this new reality while maintaining important educational opportunities for Nevadans. The nationwide recession hit the state particularly hard given its reliance on tourism and gaming. As such, revenues were slow to rebound.

There was also a long-standing funding formula that needed revision. The inequities of the old formula were exacerbated by the state’s continuing slow recovery, so a new and fair way to distribute funds to Nevada colleges and universities was researched, developed and passed by the 2013 Legislature. The recession and new funding formula required Nevada’s four community colleges to become much more efficient, while each sought to become more effective.

Some community members have advocated that a separate system of governance for community colleges would help and that a board devoted only to the oversight of community colleges would somehow produce more money for the state’s two-year institutions. The simple truth is a second system of higher education will not only produce no new money, it will cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be better spent on our core business, educating students.

We, along with our counterparts, Great Basin College President Mark A. Curtis and Western Nevada College President Chester Burton, agree and feel that removing current and future students from the NSHE might jeopardize students’ access to educational opportunities. A separate system of governance for the community colleges simply does nothing to advance higher education in Nevada.

Michael D. Richards

Las Vegas

J. Kyle Dalpe

Reno

The writers are, respectively, the president of the College of Southern Nevada and the president of Truckee Meadows Community College.

Supreme Court nominee

Steve Sebelius’ column on the Supreme Court calls out the Republican Party for its refusal to act on President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia (“Arguments against Garland nomination all fail,” March 18 Review-Journal). Mr. Sebelius calls Republicans the “Shutdown Party” and cites the constitution in saying that the president shall have the power to make appointments.

Mr. Sebelius has it half right. Under the section cited, what the constitution truly says is that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint judges of the Supreme Court.” Our Founding Fathers set this up with the understanding that the executive and legislative branches would have equal say on who is appointed to the Supreme Court. Further, the Constitution does not include a time limit to approve nominees. The Senate has a constitutional right to ignore any nominee, does not have to hold hearings and does not have to give any reason for such a decision.

In 1992, Joe Biden, then a Democratic senator, stated the Senate should not consider a Supreme Court nominee during an election year. In mid-2007, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer stated the Senate not only has the right but the duty to block Supreme Court nominees from a lame-duck president. Sen. Harry Reid refused to bring up judicial nominees by President Bush using various procedural moves. I don’ recall Mr. Sebelius whining about that.

Mr. Sebelius also wrote: “Memo to [Sen. Dean] Heller: The American people spoke back in 2012, when they re-elected Obama. By ignoring Obama’s nomination, you’re ignoring their voice.” Memo to Mr. Sebelius: The people elected Republicans in 2014 as a majority in the Senate. As President Obama once famously said to Rep. Eric Cantor, “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.”

Republicans don’t want to consider another jurist from President Obama. I hope I have adequately explained the Constitution and its separation of powers.

Michael O. Kreps

Las Vegas