By:  Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President

There’s been a great deal of time spent this legislative session dealing with the issue of how to deal with the Federal Government’s stimulus package.  While the news accounts, when the measure was passed and signed, heralded how quickly our economy would turn around now that Uncle Sam was sending unimaginable amounts of money out to save us – the promises for receiving these incredible amounts of assistances has stimulated more controversy than resolution of economic woes. 

If our economy depended on meetings and hullabaloo, we’d be well on our way to prosperity.

For several weeks there were public hearings to give the latest information about how much wasn’t known about a host of special projects and topics covered by the Federal Stimulus bill.  Everything from green energy job training – to highway construction funding – to assistance for unemployed – to other social needs programs…it’s all been hashed over, examined and evaluated for what Nevada would need to do to qualify and how much could be obtained for meeting those requirements.

Education funding and assistance has also been in the middle of the mix through this evaluation process.  Although not really given more time or attention in the context of the regular meetings, the heat has been turned up since Governor Jim Gibbons wrote and sent a letter toWashington, D.C.Governor Jim Gibbons wrote and sent a letter toWashington, D.C. asking for consideration of a waiver for the funding requirements that the state would need to meet in order to receive the funds through the stimulus bill.

As we can see from following the reactions to the Governor’s letter – in this report from the Reno Gazette Journal and this account in the Las Vegas Sun -- it would seem that not having the $268 million to get the $325 million from the stimulus funds is just not an option that the folks from Nevada’s Higher Education believe to be acceptable.

They were still going through their version of righteous indignation when they went before the Legislature’s money committee on Friday, according to this report from the Reno Gazette Journal blog Now there’s nothing wrong with the advocates for Higher Education strongly promoting the needs that they believe need to be represented.  There’s nothing wrong with standing up to encourage an understanding that Higher Education should be an important priority for state funding considerations.

At some point in time though, there is going to need to be something which takes into account how capable Nevada might be in providing Higher Education the resources that they’ve seemingly come to consider to be their entitlement.

Beyond getting past the current hardship, even if it comes with a life-line of funds that are provided by the Stimulus Package – where does that leave us in two years?  A good portion of the argument made regarding the degree of the present cuts is based on the assumption that the Higher Education System was supposed to get the amount that the legislature approved for the 2009 fiscal year.

If we can’t afford, because of available resources, to provide for that amount – how will future potential shortfalls be dealt with when the stimulus funding is spent?

So far the message promoted by Higher Education has continued to be centered on “how important Higher Education is to Nevada” and they haven’t yet crossed the line in promoting a specific tax solution (at least in on-the-record public comments).

We’ll have to see whether that approach continues to be their path.