As Legislature Considers Higher Education Cuts, Assembly Members Weigh In On Six Figure Salaries at UNLV
Submitted by on Fri, 02/26/2010 - 2:34pm
The State Senate and Assembly have this week considered cuts to education as they seek ways to close Nevada’s $881 million budget gap at the legislative special session. Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley stated on the first day of the session that she wanted the legislature to do all it can to avoid slashing education.
Currently, the legislature is considering a 7.5 percent cut in state funding for the Nevada System of Higher Education, down from the governor’s proposal of 10 percent but higher that the Democrats’ preference of five percent.
A search of University of Nevada Las Vegas payrolls, which are posted online, reveals how much of the university’s funding is spent on salaries. The payroll records show that 551 staff members earn a six figure salary, excluding benefits. Six figure plus salaries make up $72.9 million of the university’s $220.5 million total payroll.
While many of the high-paid staff are professors, deans and department chairs, 27 six figure earners are from the department of Intercollegiate Athletics, including 11 assistant football coaches who combined earn over $1.2 million.
Out of all university departments, Intercollegiate Athletics has the third-highest number of staff members who earn at least $100,000 each — just under the School of Law with 34 six-figure staff members and the School of Dental Medicine with 49.
Assemblywoman Shelia Leslie, D-Reno, says that paying that much for the athletic department is unnecessary.
“I have felt for a long time that the salaries paid to athletic personnel are completely out of whack. I have felt that way since I was a teaching graduate student at UNR,” Leslie said. “The way it’s always been justified to me is they bring in revenue through the athletic programs, and they’re worth that amount of money. But I think they’re highly overpaid.”
The online payroll also lists 67 associate and assistant professors who earn six figures annually, for a total of $7.9 million.
Leslie says that these kinds of salaries are needed to attract research professors that bring in grants for the university.
“You have to pay that much to attract those kind of quality professors. If you want a great faculty, you have to pay for it,” she said.
Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, says that at a time when many Nevadans are taking hits to their income, university staff should be expected to have similar reductions in pay.
“Times are tough, and we all have to tighten our belts and have shared sacrifice,” he said. “And when I say shared sacrifice, I mean up to and including the faculty members of Nevada’s system of higher education.”
Leslie agrees, saying that university employees should take the same pay cuts as state workers, though she pointed out that the state Legislature has no control over university salaries which are decided on the local level. Still, she said she thinks that higher education could use more funding than the current cuts being considered would allow.
“I’m more concerned about whether students can get the classes they need, whether we’re maintaining a quality higher-education system. And we need to support them in that endeavor,” she said.
Goedhart disagreed with the idea that higher education needs more funding, saying he preferred the ten percent cuts originally proposed in the governor’s plan.
“If you look at the last 10 or 20 years, the only cost that’s gone up faster than government spending and health care costs is the cost of higher education,” he said.
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