UNLV FY 12-13 budget cut proposal released

This afternoon UNLV released the proposal it will submit to the Board of Regents as a preliminary report on specific cuts that would be implemented in the event that the state legislature approves the Governor's budget proposal, or anything close to it. This plan presumes a significant increase in student fees and tuition (10%) plus additional increases in fees in some programs and areas. It also presumes the loss of a significant share of our current student body, and with it the loss of tuition and fee revenue.

It would terminate 120 faculty, including tenured faculty, and eliminate 160 total academic positions and 12 academic departments.

The next step is for the Board of Regents to discuss this and other plans and decide if now is the time to engage in some significant strategic rethinking for the System, its students and its faculty. And, of course, for those legislators who have said they have not seen "real pain" in the state's System of Higher Education to consider whether or not we remain a real university in light of these cuts.

FY 12-13 Budget Cut Impact Summary

Overall

• A total of $32.6M in cuts are proposed.

• 315 positions will be eliminated for a total of 843 cumulative positions lost over the past 4 years.

• 120 faculty positions will be lost, including tenured faculty

• $17.5M in proposed cuts to main campus academic programs affecting over 2000 students.

• $8.1 million in proposed cuts to the Law School, Dental School, Athletics, and State-Wide program,

• Elimination of 12 departments (some through reorganization).

• Elimination of 33 degree programs.

• 77 Graduate Assistants lost

• $7 M in cuts to non-academic units resulting in major reductions of services to students, faculty and campus maintenance.

• Loss of two sports and 20% of staff to Athletics, with a need to raise more funds from donors.

• Assumes tuition will be raised 12% a year for the next two years to reduce total cut level.

Academics

• 12 Departments will be eliminated or reorganized into other units.

• 8 programs will be eliminated.

• 50 major degree programs will be eliminated.

• 159 faculty and staff positions will be eliminated.

• 2118 students will be impacted by these changes.

• The university will not provide computer replacements for faculty offices from central sources.

Athletics

• Additional cuts on top of what we have already implemented will require us to struggle to maintain Division 1 NCAA status.

• We will need to eliminate one current men’s athletic program and one current women’s athletic program.

• Travel will be further restricted: eliminate all professional travel; limit team travel to lowest cost options in most all cases; limit competition schedule to NCAA minimums.

• Look at 20% reduction in overall administration staffing/costs, and 20% reductions to non-fixed operating costs.

• Move to merge facilities and grounds operations

Sr. VP for Finance and Business

• Facilities will not be able to fully maintain past focus on building preventative maintenance activities with these cuts. We will fix what breaks, to the extent possible and within a reasonable time frame.

• Off-hour operations of buildings (weekends, etc.) will be greatly curtailed in order to save energy costs, but this will impact faculty and student (specifically graduate student) activities and research programs.

• We are actively looking at what buildings can be totally shut down and put out of use for the near term.

• Likely elimination of private office cleaning schedule, to focus on main building common areas. Other building areas will not be cleaned/maintained.

• Human Resources will move all employee interactions to “i-Movies” for employees to get off their web site. This will address most major questions, but will not allow for interaction on individual issues.

• Work with employee and supervisor to address grievances and resolve them before they go into the formal process will be greatly reduced.

• Cycle for building, lab, fire extinguisher, and other inspections will increase or be eliminated resulting in more fines from local government.

• Elimination of the campus Automated External Defibrillator program is a campus health and safety risk.

• We will likely need to greatly reduce, or even eliminate, support activities for the SLC (e.g. separate mail and other delivery runs, RMS activities, facilities staff on-site, etc.)

• Campus mail services are down to one per day. We will likely move to 2-3 per week.

• Self-funded programs will be charged back for all insurance related costs and programs ($~300k/year).

• Eliminate staffing for workers compensation program.

• Back log in facilities maintenance service responses.

• Planning and Construction will not be able to support project evaluation/review with campus users.

• Limited resources for master plan updates.

• Purchasing will not be able to produce unique solicitations for NSC – they will need to purchase off existing agreements.

• HR will only be able to maintain minimal support for benefits and employee relations.

• Reduced hours for walk-in applicants to the employment office, or for assistance with on-line application process.

• Overall cycle time for all actions/transactions will continue to increase.

• We will continue to focus on automation of activities in order to be able to survive with staffing reductions.

• Eliminate weekly orientation program offerings for new hires, which will restrict hire dates.

• Substantial delays in processing employment documents.

Vice President for Student Affairs

• Reorganization of the Enrollment and Student Services unit will be required to gain even more efficiencies than have been accomplished from the previous budget reductions. The quality and timeliness of services and programs for students, faculty, staff, and external constituencies will be compromised.

• The number and types of new student recruitment activities and programs will be impacted.

• Support services and programs that foster academic success for students enrolling will be severely limited or eliminated, negatively impacting retention and graduation rates.

• Support services and programs for students preparing to graduate from UNLV will be severely limited or eliminated.

• Hours of operations (beyond the current 40 hour week, for customer services) for many student support service offices and facilities may be reduced by two to four hours per day.

• Homeland Security functions and administration of the campus-wide emergency notification system managed by the Department of Police Services may be compromised.

• Oversight and management of the Department of Police Services administrative, information technology, logistical communications, and daily support functions and activities will be compromised.




Vice President for Advancement

• 4.5 positions lost, diminished ability to market the university.

• Two people to handle media coverage and inquiries for the entire university. This will result in less media coverage of UNLV and severely hamper our ability to get the message out about the impact UNLV has on our community.

• Would not fill two positions that service to our alumni and the colleges.

• Reductions in operating funds and a loss of additional positions in Advancement will reduce services to our donors, alumni, community, elected officials, faculty, staff and students.




Vice President Research

• Elimination of multiple graduate programs will result in declining enrollment to the Graduate College.

• 77 Graduate Assistant positions will be lost.

• Barrick Museum operations limited.

• Carnegie ranking may be lowered.

• Loss of graduate assistant instructors for numerous undergraduate courses.

Dental School

• Community outreach programs will be reduced or eliminated to meet only basic accreditation requirements.

• Students’ tuition and fees would increase an additional 8% per year surcharge in addition to the 3% registration fee/tuition increase already approved. This would be an additional 11% increase per year for two years, which could negatively impact the SDM’s competitiveness.

Law School

• Tuition increases will be used to cover the cuts. This will bring tuition increase totals more than triple the cost of just three years ago. These additional increases will undermine the Law School’s successful formula and render it a mediocre institution.

Statewide Programs

• The cuts range from 27% to 35% of selected program budgets. The most impacted programs are the Barrick Museum, the Southern Nevada Writing Project and The Nevada Small Business Development Center. Since the Statewide program budgets are so small and have been cut before, an attempt will be made to retain some of the programs by raising funds to keep them operating.

President’s Office

• Elimination of the Senior Advisor to the President.

• Reduction in the President’s contingency funds limits the ability to seed research programs, engage in collaborative interaction with the community, and develop initiatives that could enhance the university’s mission and reputation.