UNR official for first time concedes disparity

CARSON CITY -- A high-ranking official of the University of Nevada, Reno, conceded for the first time Friday that UNLV is shortchanged in state funding when the two schools are compared.

Until now, Reno campus officials have defended the differences, saying there's justification for the extra money it receives per student.

University Regent Steve Sisolak of Las Vegas has raised the issue of disparity and talked to legislators about changing the funding formula for the universities.

"Steve is right," said Ashok Dhingra, vice president of finance and administration for UNR. But the difference is not the $2,821 per student that Sisolak quotes, Dhingra said. It's more like $483 per student.

And it can be corrected by an extra $3 million a year for UNLV, not the $38 million advocated by some.

The regents of the University and Community College System of Nevada meet Thursday and Friday in Las Vegas, and Sisolak wants to reopen and change the budgets adopted last fall by the board.

He favors putting other funded programs on a back burner, such as turning the Great Basin College in Elko into a four-year school and starting the Redfield campus south of Reno for UNR and the community colleges.

The inequity, Dhingra said, comes "because there are more high-cost programs at one institution (Reno) than another."

"We need to build two great universities," the UNR administrator said. "In order for UNLV to have the ability to get there, it needs a $3 million reserve to recruit faculty to match the faculty at our campus. That's the difference."

One cannot just take the number of full-time students and divide that into the education budget to compare spending, Dhingra said. Other factors that must be considered are the square footage on the campus, the head count, the number of schools and colleges, the economies of scale and the support functions.

One thing most people seem to agree on now is the need for an independent study to see what the differences are and how it can be corrected. A study conducted by the Legislative Counsel Bureau last year found the disparity was $784 per student between UNR and UNLV.

"Reno doesn't argue the disparity number," UNLV President Carol Harter said, calling the legislative study "deeply flawed."

"They argue it's a legitimate disparity, which they think is 100 percent reasonable. We think it's 100 percent unreasonable. That's what an objective study is going to do."

But Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno and a UNR graduate, noted that a study will probably show the disparity "is going to be much less" than people are arguing.

"When you say disparity, that's not accurate," he said. "Both are funded on the same basis. Different programs require different faculty. That's why you cannot look at it on a per-student basis."

Sisolak and Dhingra exchanged their views in a friendly argument Friday in the coffee shop at the legislative building. The Las Vegas regent agreed some of the disparity may be justified. But he objected to the argument that Reno has more square footage to maintain. UNLV has more students and is growing faster, he noted, and "We would like more square feet."

"There's a massive need in the south" for buildings, Sisolak said. Dhingra countered saying in the past 30 years, Reno received $130 million for construction while close to $200 million in state money has gone to UNLV -- and "rightfully so." Reno's construction, Dhingra added, was done primarily with private money.

Sisolak said he does not want anybody else's budget to be cut. "I want to re-allocate," he said. "If there's a huge need in one place and a relatively small need in another place, we might have to readjust so there's equal suffering.

"If that's viewed as a cut, I'm sorry for that."

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