Regents tackle deadlock on college funding

A marathon regents meeting Thursday failed to produce a solution to a college funding issue that has turned into a north-south battle despite efforts by officials to portray it as a universal problem shared by everyone in the system.

The issue was to take center stage when the state's seven regents convened again this morning on the Charleston Campus of Community College of Southern Nevada, where an overflow crowd Thursday listened to impassioned arguments by the system's seven presidents as to why they should either get more money or have their budgets left unaltered.

The disparity of funding of Nevada's four community colleges and two universities, based on a count of full-time equivalency students as opposed to an actual head count, was the only agenda item discussed Thursday.

During the meeting, UNLV President Carol Harter said her university was being crippled by the $23.5 million slash it took in the budget.

"We can't hire the 80 faculty members we need to teach an additional 1,000 students," she said. "We can't heat, light or staff our new library. We are essentially crippled."

She said if more money isn't forthcoming, there could be layoffs.

"We need a commitment that will be definite," she said. "Show us where the money is coming from.

"Right now, UNLV and CCSN are the only two that have to wait to see if money is going to come."

The other five institutions are fully funded, she noted.

Clark County School Superintendent Brian Cram, among a long list of people who made comments to the regents about the need for equity in funding, warned that if the board doesn't correct the problem it is leaving itself open to a class-action lawsuit.

"There is a potential here for a class-action suit by some students, and you would not survive that suit," Cram said.

Despite an earlier admonition by Regent Chairwoman Jill Derby against "jeering or cheering," Cram's statement was followed by applause from an audience heavily weighted in favor of Southern Nevada.

Cram said he overheard a group of students discussing the possibility of filing a class-action lawsuit but knew nothing more about it.

The meeting could be described as a "pie" fight -- with presidents from UNLV, the Community College of Southern Nevada and the University of Nevada, Reno, each presenting reams of pie charts and graphs to support persuasive arguments supporting their own points of view.

Depending on who is doing the talking, the problem and its solution are either very complex or very simple.

"We're dealing with a very complex issue, I hope we can all agree on that," Reno President Joe Crowley said. He used his charts and graphs to show that in fact there is no great disparity in funding between his university and UNLV and that the northern institution also is underfunded.

"It's very simple," Cram said. "Take care of the (funding) problem that exists now (with the southern schools) and take care of the other problems out of money that is to come."

Chancellor Richard Jarvis thought that a meeting with the Council of Presidents had produced an agreement among the seven officials on a three-part plan to address the funding problem.

He was taken aback at Thursday's meeting when, after reading the agreement to the assembly, Harter and Community College of Southern Nevada President Richard Moore both said they had reservations about the proposed solution.

The nonagreement included three proposals:

* To request an immediate, independent funding study that would make recommendations to achieve equity in funding.

* To reconfirm an agreement made by the Council of Presidents at a Feb. 10 meeting that any new money appropriated by the Legislature after a May 1 economic forum would be used to reduce funding inequities. Under this proposal, UNLV would get $9 million, the Community College of Southern Nevada would get $7 million and Truckee Meadows Community College would get $1 million.

* If no new money comes from the Legislature, there would be a commitment to reallocate funds from the system's estate tax account to reduce the inequity.

Harter and Moore objected on the grounds that the plan is unworkable -- that the time frame is too short between the May 1 economic forum's decision on how much money can be spent by the state and the last day of the Legislature, May 28.

Regent Steve Sisolak of Las Vegas, the leading critic of the funding formula that he says has resulted in gross disparities in funding between the northern and southern institutions, cited the confusion over whether there was an agreement on the Council of President's proposal as another example of the south being railroaded by the north.

Sisolak noted that the agreement was among the five northern presidents, not the southern.

Crowley took issue with Sisolak's insinuation that the north was "ganging up" on the south.

"I felt there was an absolute agreement," Crowley said. "To characterize this as the north ganging up on the south is wrong. I thought there was a consensus."

Regent Vice Chairman Tom Wiesner made a motion to pass the proposal, but it failed. The vote was split 5-5 and Chairwoman Jill Derby cast the tie-breaking "no" vote, saying the issue needed more discussion.

Las Vegas Regent Mark Alden offered his own motion to solve the problem -- a motion that was seconded by Sisolak but then got lost in the discussion as the day's nine-hour meeting drew to an end at 5:30 p.m.

Alden's motion, which should receive further discussion today along with the Council of Presidents' proposal, would freeze the estate tax funding at the 1997-1999 biennium level of $36.92 million and reallocate funds to make up for the shortfall.

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