Southern schools ready for fund war with north

Speaking at the monthly meeting of the Community College of Southern Nevada's Faculty Senate, Regent Tom Kirkpatrick of Las Vegas made it sound as if civil war was being declared between the north and the south.

Kirkpatrick's speech Friday to the community college senators was laced with salt and humor, but his intent was serious -- to spur the faculty to action in a drive begun by four Southern Nevada regents to achieve equity in funding.

"We want to start a movement and we need the help of the faculty, students and alumnae," said Kirkpatrick, a UNLV professor emeritus in vocational-technical education.

A confrontation Thursday and Friday could occur when regents hold their regular meeting at the Charleston Campus of CCSN.

Of all the items listed on the agenda, the funding issue is being allotted three hours -- three times longer than any other item.

It has received top priority because of protests by regents Kirkpatrick, Steve Sisolak, Mark Alden and Doug Seastrand.

According to figures released by the community college, it and UNLV are receiving far less funding than northern institutions.

The community college is being short-changed $8 million in the budget now under consideration, Ruell Fiant, the community college's vice president of fiscal and administrative services, said.

Based on full-time equivalency student enrollment between the northern and southern institutions, the difference is believed to exceed $2,000 per student.

Fiant noted the Community College of Southern Nevada is being funded at a rate of $3,964 per full-time equivalency compared with $5,059 at Truckee Meadows, $6,579 at Western Nevada and $7,156 at Great Basin.

Great Basin, he said, is being funded almost at the same level as UNLV, which receives $7,310 compared with $10,378 received by the University of Nevada, Reno.

The discrepancy in funding is especially hard on the local community college, its officials point out, because it is the fastest growing institution in the state.

"We're going to ask all institutions in Nevada to bleed the same," Kirkpatrick said.

He said at the regent's meeting this week, Chancellor Richard Jarvis will be asked to redo the budget.

"We're going to get into a battle," he assured the faculty senators as he asked for their support by writing and calling politicians and attending the upcoming meeting.

Kirkpatrick insisted northern politicians "have been screwing Southern Nevada."

He specifically identified Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, as a prime architect in the inequity of funding practices that have existed at least since 1986, when a funding formula was created.

"Raggio has been manipulating the hell out of us dumb-ass Southern Nevadans," Kirkpatrick said. "CCSN and UNLV have been woefully underfunded, and we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.

"We need more money down here and it irritates me to know the citizens down here are being disenfranchised. I want our students down here to have the same access, the same quality education.

"If we have to suffer down here, we want them to suffer up there."

archive