Nevada System of Higher Education Regent Mark Doubrava is shown at a special meeting, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020.
Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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When the Nevada Legislature imposed particularly deep cuts in the higher education budget last month, some members of the state Board of Regents lashed out at lawmakers.
But the newest member of the regents, Lisa Levine, got it right in assessing the reductions. Sounding an all-too-rare voice of reason among the regents, Levine said “systematic mistrust” of the regents and the Nevada System of Higher Education administration led lawmakers to carve the higher ed budget.
“People don’t trust this agency to do the right thing with the money,” she said. “And we need to show we’re trying.”
Bingo.
The regents and NSHE have destroyed trust not only among legislators but particularly among Southern Nevadans, through any number of ways — mismanaging UNLV, favoring UNR over all other institutions in the system, misleading lawmakers and refusing to hold themselves accountable.
More on all of that in a moment, but the upshot is that higher education in Nevada has been dealt a serious setback and the regents and NSHE have themselves to blame for it.
That starts with the regents, who oversee the NSHE system in a manner similar to the way the school board of a public school system manages a superintendent’s office. In this analogy, NSHE Chancellor Thom Reilly is the superintendent.
With the exception of Levine, the regents’ dysfunction was fully on display during a recent meeting when the subject of the cuts came up. Dr. Mark Doubrava, the board’s chairman, threw such a hissy fit that he actually suggested the Legislature should be written out of the state constitution over the cuts.
You read that right. The lead regent called for the dismantling of democracy in Nevada — not only an astonishing overreaction but a particularly stupid thing to do politically, given that the Legislature will likely be looking for more cuts to address state budget shortfalls brought on by the pandemic.
Regent Trevor Hayes got into the act too, slamming the Legislature for not understanding the value of higher education.
Enter Levine, the grown-up in the room, who urged her colleagues to recognize that lawmakers faced agonizing decisions in addressing the state’s massive $1.2 billion budget hole and made the cuts they felt were fair. She doubled down on the responsible approach by telling the regents they should acknowledge that the situation was a two-way street and that they bore responsibility for their actions.
Certainly, the regents and NSHE have given lawmakers and Nevadans at large plenty of reasons not to trust them. Among them:
• Hounding out a string of UNLV presidents amid micromanaging and overblown accusations of mismanagement. UNLV’s incoming president, Keith Whitfield, will be the seventh person to lead the university in either a long-term or acting role in the past 14 years. The unfair treatment of former UNLV President Len Jessup resulted in the alienation of the UNLV donor community, which withdrew millions of dollars of gifts while citing distrust in the regents and administration to responsibly steward the money.
• Misleading the Legislature in 2011 and 2012 under then-Chancellor Dan Klaich on questions regarding equity in the funding formula for higher ed, including submitting a falsified document.
• Being duplicitous with lawmakers. Example: In 2019, after indicating he would testify as “neutral” on a resolution that would remove the regents from the state constitution, Regent Kevin Page spoke clearly in opposition to the measure until he was shut down by the head of the committee taking the testimony.
• Avoiding accountability. The regents didn’t fire Klaich over his shady activities — they allowed him to resign with a golden parachute. The regents also took no formal action against Page after the Sun uncovered emails last year in which he threatened UNLV officials with retaliation unless they provided preferential treatment to a relative of his who was attending the university. Page further faced no repercussions when the Sun, in a follow-up, revealed that he had shared with his brother, who had no formal connection to NSHE, highly confidential emails involving personnel issues.
• Tilting the tables in favor of UNR. Example: Despite an NSHE-supported change in the state funding formula for higher education, which was supposed to provide equitable funding, UNR still gets a disproportionately high share.
Voters can fix this in November, when they’ll decide a ballot question over whether to remove the regents from the state constitution — the measure Page testified about, and which Doubrava was referencing in his comment about removing the Legislature from the constitution.
The ballot question is designed to bring clarity to the limits of the regents’ authority and allow for greater oversight by lawmakers. It needs to pass, because in the past the regents and NSHE have argued that they’re essentially a separate branch of government answerable only to themselves.
Levine, who was appointed to the board in May after the death of Regent Sam Lieberman, recognizes that the state’s higher ed oversight is broken, and she’s fighting a good fight in trying to persuade her fellow regents to rebuild trust. That should happen regardless of how the fall vote goes.
But, meanwhile, voters can address the problem on their own.
No, Dr. Doubrava, the solution isn’t to get rid of the Legislature. It’s to bring the regents and NSHE under control.
