University to present lawmakers with alternative budget

After more than three months of resistance, higher education officials told lawmakers Friday they will return with an alternative to Gov. Jim Gibbons' proposed budget, spelling out what cuts they can and can't take without permanent damage to the system.

Until Friday, higher education's position on the budget has been not to provide specifics of where and what they would be willing to cut, arguing that formula funding to support professors and classes must be restored.

Both the budget division and lawmakers, however, have been frustrated by that, saying they must have much more specific information in order to decide how to build the system's budget for the coming two years.

Lawmakers agreed with system officials the governor's proposed 35.9 percent funding cut " $843 million over the biennium " would devastate the university system.

Senate finance Chairwoman Bernice Mathews, D-Sparks, asked for the system's plan for downsizing if they don't get their budget fully restored.

"Our hope is this body finds the ability to move our funding to a 2006 level, which also frees up badly needed Stimulus dollars and allows us to have a budget moving forward for two years that would allow us to avoid that situation," said Executive Vice Chancellor Dan Klaich.

"I feel like we're just doing a dance here," said Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks. "You have to start telling us what the plan is. We have to start getting some answers on these questions. We're talking in generalities."

Klaich said the most the system could absorb is the 16 percent, which would take university funding back to 2006 levels

"If you don't meet that level and anything near the governor's cuts are going forward, we will have to lay off staff," said Klaich.

He said the governor's recommended 35.9 percent budget cut would cost the jobs of up to 2,200 people.

Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said it's time university officials presented lawmakers with an alternative to the governor's budget.

"What would the budget look like at the 2006 level? Show us what the impact of that budget would be, what programs would be affected, how much tuition would have to be raised, what cuts would be imposed," he said. "That would help start to frame the decisions we have to make.

"Rather than us telling the system, I would like the system to tell us," Horsford told Klaich.

Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said her priorities for additions to the governor's budget are, "not having layoffs of professors, not having reductions in classes " those are at the top of our list."

Buckley also said lawmakers don't want one campus hit much harder than others.

Klaich agreed the system will return with recommendations based on the amount of state funding the system received in Fiscal 2006 " the base amount of funding required to meet federal requirements for Nevada to get education money in the Stimulus package.

He said if lawmakers can do that, he doesn't believe the system would have to order layoffs.

 From that point, he said, the system would lay out specific areas they feel must be given special consideration. One potential area mentioned was restoration of funding for the family physician residency program in the medical school.

Klaich emphasized during testimony, however, that university officials don't believe per credit fees at the two universities can be raised significantly. He said university enrollment has been dropping in the past two years, they believe, because the price per credit has gone above what the market will bear. He said students are moving

instead to the community colleges, which charge much less per credit.

Klaich said any increases above the 5 percent more already approved by the board of regents should be no more than "the low single digits."

Another hearing on the Nevada System of Higher Education budgets is expected next week.

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