Sunday, Nov. 10, 2019 | 9 p.m.
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With the chancellor of Nevada's higher-education system scheduled to depart next year, the state Board of Regents has a prime example of how not to go about filling the job.
That example would be the way they hired the current chancellor, Thom Reilly.
The regents approached Reilly in 2018 after a train wreck of a national search in which five semifinalists pulled out of the running and after the interim chancellor, John Valery White, turned down a chance to seek the position long-term. White, who at the time was on the brink of being appointed as chancellor, cited infighting among regents as a reason for declining the job.
Desperate to get the job filled, the regents turned to Reilly.
That gave Reilly an enormous amount of leverage in negotiating his three-year contract, and it showed. He signed on for $425,000, which was $122,000 more than his predecessor had made.
That's an eye-popping 40% more money for someone whose experience in higher education management was not particularly dazzling. Chancellors often come from the ranks of top-level administrators of large schools — think provosts or deans of medical schools, business schools and law schools. Reilly's top qualifications included two months as a vice chancellor in the Nevada System of Higher Education and serving as director of a public policy institute at Arizona State University that currently lists 14 staff members.
So, good for Reilly to get such a fat contract given his relatively thin résumé. Not so great for Nevada taxpayers, though. They'll be on the hook for a whopping pension for Reilly when he leaves his job in August 2020.
See, there's significance to the duration of Reilly's three-year contract. In Nevada's Public Employees Retirement System, pensions are calculated based on the average of the top three years of an employee's compensation.
Reilly knew that well when he signed up — he was already in the PERS system after serving as an administrator in the state's child welfare system and spending five years as a county manager for Clark County. Reilly topped out as county manager with a relatively modest $190,004, so the boost to $425,000 meant wonders for his PERS benefits.
Sources familiar with the hiring told the Sun that Regent Kevin Page bragged about the pension in public, describing it as what sealed the deal on Reilly's hiring.
And that was just the beginning. The regents bumped him up to $438,000 after his first year on the job.
So it's really no surprise Reilly is planning to leave after three years when his cushy pension becomes locked in.
And what will Nevadans get in return for all we've paid him and will continue to pay him for years to come? A system that is awash in uncertainty and instability thanks partly to his mismanagement.
Reilly played a leading role in the ouster of former UNLV President Len Jessup in the spring of 2018, a disastrous move from which the university has yet to recover.
Jessup didn't deserve to be shoved out — the university was making strides under his watch in enrollment, student achievement and fundraising. Not surprisingly, he drew strong support in the community.
But the regents and Reilly used trumped-up concerns to publicly assail Jessup, and also dinged him for falling short of performance standards he'd been given inadequate time to meet.
Now Jessup is president at the prestigious Claremont Graduate College in Southern California, which is thriving, and UNLV is in limbo amid a presidential search that still hasn't begun in earnest.
Things are also up in the air at UNR, where Marc Johnson recently announced he would step down as president this summer.
So let's see, the regents now need to hire the top three administrative positions in Nevada's higher ed system — a chancellor and two presidents. And because the presidents report to the chancellor, the timing of Reilly's departure is undoubtedly going to hinder the ability to attract deep pools of qualified candidates. After all, who would take a job not knowing who their boss will be?
Given the regents' history of mismanagement and dysfunction, it's anybody's guess how they'll carry out the chancellor's search and whether they can avoid the kind of catastrophe that led to Reilly's hiring.
Last time, they blamed their failure on the public nature of the search process and candidates' concerns about open meeting laws, which would have led to semifinalists being identified.
Structural changes may be necessary for the upcoming search, but transparency should remain a goal. At the very least, finalists should be identified, which is common in other states.
But if things fall apart again, the regents should appoint an interim chancellor and try again — not hand someone the keys to the vault, as they did with Reilly.
Editor’s note: Reilly’s experience also included six years as professor and director of the San Diego State University School of Social Welfare and two years as an adjunct professor at UNLV.
