Speaking to members of the Senate Finance Committee of the Nevada Legislature at an evening hearing on AB268 on March 22, NSHE Acting Chancellor Dale Erquiaga urged the lawmakers not to exclude NSHE professionals from the $500 quarterly retention bonuses proposed in AB268 due to uncertain estimates. Nevada State Senator Heidi Seevers Gansert of Reno acknowledged the volume of messages received by her office and the offices of other legislators. Most calls, she said, came from individuals urging the lawmakers to restore the bonuses to NSHE professionals which were stripped by an amendment in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and later passed by the full Assembly.
Erquiaga's comments followed an exchange where lawmakers sparred with the Governor's Chief of Staff, Ben Kieckhefer, over discrepancies in the total cost of reinstatement in different recommendations. The Chancellor told the group that there are 4,161 professionals currently employed at NSHE. A proposal matching a recommendation from the Nevada Faculty Alliance, would exclude professionals earning more $154,000, which is 95% of the Governor's salary. Erquiaga agreed with the recommendation, telling the group that the salary ceiling reduces the number of eligible professionals to about 3,800. "If those numbers are too big, we can slice it a different way," he said, and cited an example that would limit the bonuses to employees making under $90,000. "We will work with you," he said, "but let's not punish folks over 'mathiness.'"
Prior to Erquiaga's testimony, Kieckhefer told the committee that the Governor did not oppose reinstatement of faculty. The discussion among the committee members centered over confusion about how much the cost of the bill would increase with the reinstatement. Kieckhefer cited $20 million as a total expenditure which was from the Governor's original submission, but lawmakers said other estimates set the amount closer to $23 million. He explained the totals probably varied due to different assumptions in the calculations made by the groups submitting the estimates. He told the committee that the differences really weren't that large and more precise numbers would be easy to reach.
Committee Vice Chair, Nicole Canizzaro acknowledged the desire to take care of NSHE professionals and said she believed NSHE professionals were deserving, but also told Kieckhefer it was an issue of numbers and uncertainty about what the final expenditure would be. Meanwhile, Senator Robin Titus said she wants to see a proposal with accurate estimates that include NSHE professionals to help make an informed decision.
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| NFA State Board President Kent Ervin |
Dozens of individuals made public comment supporting the bill, and the majority urged reinstatement of NSHE professionals. NFA State President Kent Ervin, spoke in opposition, but only because of the exclusions in the current bill. He reminded lawmakers that the number of NSHE professionals earning between $40,000 and $50,000 is equal to the number of classified staff members in that salary range, emphasizing that the salaries of doctors in the medical schools, coaches, and administrators draw a lot of attention, but are not representative of the professional staff. He told the committee members that NFA will enthusiastically endorse the bill when it covers all state employees equitably.
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