Education officials lobby for $27 million for UNLV medical school

By Kyle Roerink

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015 | 12:30 p.m.

The top brass of UNLV and the Nevada System of Higher Education lobbied lawmakers today for $27 million in upfront funding for a medical school in Las Vegas, instead of the $8.3 million proposed by Gov. Brian Sandoval.

The funding push highlights the paramount challenge UNLV must overcome if it wants to enroll an inaugural class by 2017: raising state and private funds to pay for the school.

The effort also showcases a budget battle pitting lawmakers to choose between funding a high-profile item all at once or incrementally.

NSHE requested $27 million for the medical school this year, calling the sum a small amount for a school that will have an estimated $350 million backing from philanthropists.

The governor has signaled he will support $27 million for the school, but he doesn’t want to fund it all at once.

He wants $8.3 million to go to UNLV in the next two years and the remainder to follow in the next biennium.

Compared to other states, NSHE is not asking for much.

Florida promised $62 million to the University of South Florida’s medical school this month, and Kansas recently spent $100 million.

But delaying funding will delay the economic and health care benefits the school is poised to bring, said UNLV medical school Planning Dean Barbara Atkinson.

Sandoval’s plan “misses are a lot of things that are very important for us,” Atkinson said. “First of all is the economic benefit.”

The medical school will spur $3.6 billion in spending and create 24,000 jobs by 2030, Atkinson said.

Dan Klaich, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, said he believes Sandoval will come around. “It’s a big bite up front. But it’s a bite that pays back in very short order,” he said.

Republican Assemblyman Pat Hickey said lawmakers could give UNLV the money upfront, but “only with the governor’s buy-in.”

Lawmakers, bureaucrats and students who testified in the hearing this morning agreed on one thing: there’s a desperate need for a Las Vegas medical school.

The school is trumpeted as a way to keep doctors in Nevada and grow a wide range of medical specialties missing from Nevada.

The state loses $2 billion to other states in annual health care spending, according to Brookings Mountain West.

The state is 48th among the states in primary care physicians per 100,000 people and ranks last or near last in nearly every other category — family practices, pediatricians, OB/GYNs and psychiatrists.

Las Vegas is also the largest major city without a medical school and far from any other city’s school. The closest one is in Loma Linda, Calif., which is 200 miles away. The University of Nevada School of Medicine is 400 miles away.

The case for accelerating the funding makes itself, Klaich said.

“This is truly an investment that will produce more economic activity. It will change the economy of Southern Nevada; it will help drive the economy of the state; it will produce more jobs and the kind we need...That doesn’t even talk about health care for Nevadans who deserve better health care.”