WNC struggling with budget cuts

More students crowded into fewer classes, aspiring nurses being turned away and vacancies in key professorships. That's the situation Western Nevada College students returned to this fall because of budget cuts imposed by the state.

President Carol Lucey says the school, with campuses in Carson City and Fallon and several adjunct campuses in smaller communities such as Yerington, is struggling to

provide the classes and services its students need.

"From the beginning we have said we're going to do things that don't hurt students," she said. "Obviously, we didn't get away with that."

While the school is managing the situation pretty well now, she said the governor and Legislature need to know it can't do that in perpetuity.

"We can get by for a year or so, but we cannot last much longer than that," she said.

One of the programs she is most worried about is nursing, which the university system and lawmakers have labeled as critical to the state.

"We turned down more qualified health students this year than we admitted," she said.

According to WNC's allied Health Division, the school admitted 64 new students this fall. But the school was forced to turn away 70 students who met the qualifications.

She said there is no question Nevada desperately needs more nurses. One of the key reasons Nevada State College in Henderson was created was to train nurses.

For the same reason, the college set a goal of doubling its nursing enrollment over the past four years.

"If you don't have nurses, you can't open (hospital) beds," she said. "If you aren't educating nurses, you don't have a health care system."

A major loss, she said, was the surgical tech professor, and Lucey says there's no money to hire a replacement.

The nursing program has grown from 72 students to 110 over the past four years. But the need and demand is much greater. She said the college should be signing up all those nursing candidates and creating a four-year program to train physician's assistants who could serve many rural communities that don't have doctors.

But nursing isn't the only program hurting from the budget cuts. She said there were 1,073 class sections in fall 2006 for 12,448 students. This fall, 12,882 students are crowded into just 935 classes.

She said that will result in some classes not being offered as often. And that means it will take longer for students to get the classes needed to graduate from WNC or to move on to the University of Nevada.

"Students won't have the options they need to have," she said.

She said the good news is the school managed to make necessary cuts without closing any of its rural adjunct campuses. She said nursing students in Fallon have been told they may have to drive to Carson City for their classes next year.

The decision was made not to make cuts through layoffs, but through attrition as staff and professors move on. Lucey said the problem with that is her administration doesn't control where vacancies occur.

"It's a crap shoot. We no longer have a full-time physics teacher. We lost our full-time engineer, one of the math teachers and a chemist," she said pointing out that those professors provide the classes required for WNC students to move up to UNR.

She said while WNC has excellent adjunct professors, the full-time professional is needed to keep the programs on track.

"We have too many programs that are critical to our service area in which we have lost staff," she said. "We've got to replace all those people."

Add to that, the weak economy is actually driving enrollment higher.

"We have more students than we ever had before. The parking lots are full, classes are full. More students are realizing they're just not going to make it without more education."

Lucey said she is also trying to protect the school's occupational programs including construction, automotive, welding and information technology. But she said they all need to get certified, which takes funding.

The budget crunch put an end to one program " classes at the four prisons in WNC's territory. That left about 100 students who are inmates without classes. She said those classes are important because students with the education to get a decent job don't commit new crimes and return to prison.

"People with good occupational skills are able to turn their lives around," she said.

The budget cuts, she said, have resulted in some efficiencies as the school's departments re-examined how they do things. Those are good things, she said.

"If I could just get back the money I'm losing, we could do a lot," she said. "My nursing director tells me with two more staff, they could put on a weekend program and take LPNs (Licensed Practical Nurses) through an RN (Registered Nurse) program."

"But until we get past this numbers crunch, we can't do anything."

- Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.