Learning More About UNR’s Budget
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
Dr. Milton Glick, President of the University of Nevada, Reno recently hosted a town hall meeting to share insight on the budget that Governor Gibbons has offered to the 2009 Legislature regarding UNR. The session was intended to assist members of various advisory committees, connected to respective colleges at UNR, in gaining more awareness about the details of the budget.
To his credit, Dr. Glick has taken a very positive approach in speaking about the budget. He has noted that while the numbers of the budget being offered for consideration aren’t going to work for maintaining or improving Nevada’s overall condition – he also recognizes that UNR will have to take its share of the reductions that might be necessary in today’s difficult economic climate.
In sharing the details of the numbers, Dr. Glick highlighted the nearly $71.8 million reduction proposed in the Governor’s 2010 budget for the instructional portion of the University of Nevada budget. Describing what he termed “buckets”, UNR’s eight (8) line items, that includes the one proposed for the $71.8 hit, ends up on the bottom-line with an overall reduction of $76.4 million or a 34.6 percent reduction from the base year they are use (2009 fiscal year). The line item of significant reduction – for the $71.8 million (instructional area) – amounts to a 49.9 percent cut from the 2009 base-year level.
When asked for what members of the advisory committees might do to assist in supporting UNR and the specific areas that they are most interested in, Dr. Glick advised to first contact your legislator (the one you vote for) to stress how important you think UNR is as it carries out its mission of education of students. His second recommended contact was your neighbor to enlist them in helping to make legislative contacts. The third “thing to do” came from UNR’s lobbyist and encouraged those involved in the effort to “call more legislators.”
More Information Needed:
It is one thing to support the necessity of keeping UNR and other components of the Nevada Higher Education operational…its something else to respond blindly with the complexity of the budget for UNR and other components of the Nevada Higher Education System.
We have asked for and expect to receive more specific information than the point-in-time “base” for the 2009 fiscal year. This set of numbers is the budget allocation approved in the past Nevada Legislative session, when the projections indicated that revenue coming into the state would be higher. In adopting this budget level, Nevada lawmakers had increased the amount from the previous biennium and Higher Education had received increases in the previous biennium from the two-year budget period before that.
There is also a need to evaluate the reductions in the context of the totals of the entire budget amounts. Where possible it should be explained, in a comprehensive fashion, the size of the budget slice from the state’s general fund for UNR and what recent history has been for the size and scope of other revenue streams.
The public discussion and policy consideration for funding needs us to have the vantage point of all the information pertaining to the components of the state’s Higher Education system.
We appreciate the openness and willingness for UNR officials to engage in a candid exchange of information and believe that this approach will greatly assist in the relationship building that the current outreach effort is attempting to foster.
Dr. Milton Glick, President of the University of Nevada, Reno recently hosted a town hall meeting to share insight on the budget that Governor Gibbons has offered to the 2009 Legislature regarding UNR. The session was intended to assist members of various advisory committees, connected to respective colleges at UNR, in gaining more awareness about the details of the budget.
To his credit, Dr. Glick has taken a very positive approach in speaking about the budget. He has noted that while the numbers of the budget being offered for consideration aren’t going to work for maintaining or improving Nevada’s overall condition – he also recognizes that UNR will have to take its share of the reductions that might be necessary in today’s difficult economic climate.
In sharing the details of the numbers, Dr. Glick highlighted the nearly $71.8 million reduction proposed in the Governor’s 2010 budget for the instructional portion of the University of Nevada budget. Describing what he termed “buckets”, UNR’s eight (8) line items, that includes the one proposed for the $71.8 hit, ends up on the bottom-line with an overall reduction of $76.4 million or a 34.6 percent reduction from the base year they are use (2009 fiscal year). The line item of significant reduction – for the $71.8 million (instructional area) – amounts to a 49.9 percent cut from the 2009 base-year level.
When asked for what members of the advisory committees might do to assist in supporting UNR and the specific areas that they are most interested in, Dr. Glick advised to first contact your legislator (the one you vote for) to stress how important you think UNR is as it carries out its mission of education of students. His second recommended contact was your neighbor to enlist them in helping to make legislative contacts. The third “thing to do” came from UNR’s lobbyist and encouraged those involved in the effort to “call more legislators.”
More Information Needed:
It is one thing to support the necessity of keeping UNR and other components of the Nevada Higher Education operational…its something else to respond blindly with the complexity of the budget for UNR and other components of the Nevada Higher Education System.
We have asked for and expect to receive more specific information than the point-in-time “base” for the 2009 fiscal year. This set of numbers is the budget allocation approved in the past Nevada Legislative session, when the projections indicated that revenue coming into the state would be higher. In adopting this budget level, Nevada lawmakers had increased the amount from the previous biennium and Higher Education had received increases in the previous biennium from the two-year budget period before that.
There is also a need to evaluate the reductions in the context of the totals of the entire budget amounts. Where possible it should be explained, in a comprehensive fashion, the size of the budget slice from the state’s general fund for UNR and what recent history has been for the size and scope of other revenue streams.
The public discussion and policy consideration for funding needs us to have the vantage point of all the information pertaining to the components of the state’s Higher Education system.
We appreciate the openness and willingness for UNR officials to engage in a candid exchange of information and believe that this approach will greatly assist in the relationship building that the current outreach effort is attempting to foster.
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