The Nevada Sagebrush

Samuel Owens, a University of Nevada, Reno student, protests proposed budget cuts in front of the Nevada State Legislature on Monday. Photo by Devin Sizemore/Nevada Sagebrush.

47 percent: proposed state funding cut from UNR.

$427 million: proposed amount cut from NSHE budget.

$64 million: proposed amount cut from UNR budget.

Source: 2009-2011 Executive Budget

Gov. Jim Gibbons proposed cutting almost half – $64 million – of the University of Nevada, Reno’s state funding in his attempt to balance Nevada’s budget.

The loss in state money would mean a 36 percent overall loss to UNR’s budget, an effective “dismantling”of the university, UNR President Milton Glick said.

“I was a little shaken up when I heard the numbers,”Associated Students of the University of Nevada President Eli Reilly said. “We’re setting the state up for failure with cuts like this.”

Gibbons cut a total of $427 million, or 36 percent, from the Nevada System of Higher Education compared to its 2007-08 budget. The entire budget is $630 million less than the one he proposed in 2007.

“We all understand that the state’s got a real budget problem and that we are all going to have to make some sacrifices,”Glick said. “But to put such a disproportionate share of those sacrifices on higher education just dismayed me.”

The Nevada economy was sorely hit by the recent downturn. The state faces an 8 percent unemployment rate while tourism was down 3.5 percent in the Las Vegas area, Gibbons said in his State of the State address Thursday. Tourism in the Reno-Sparks area was down 10 percent in the past year, he said.

“The combination of tight credit markets, sharp declines in discretionary spending and record-low consumer confidence has caused our two major industries, construction and tourism, to suffer drastic reductions,”Gibbons said in the speech. “The numbers are daunting.”

Gibbons fiercely opposed new taxes in his speech as well, saying that a tighter belt is needed to survive the recession.

University administrators have been trying to cut 14.1 percent from UNR’s budget since last semester, leading to the loss of several university functions and the layoffs of many temporary faculty members.

But Glick called the proposed cuts, about 47 percent of the state’s funding to UNR, particularly “draconian.”

“We have been given a target of 14.1 percent by the (Board of Regents) and, with a combination of reductions and tuition increases and reorganization, we can make that number,”Glick said. “I don’t even know where you begin on cuts with this depth because you would really be talking about dismantling the university.”

In Gibbons’ condensed version of the budget, his office writes that the cut will make NSHE more efficiently run and more responsive to students’ needs. It will also force NSHE to focus only on core programs, according to the budget.

Glick said cuts do tend to make organizations more efficient, but not when the cuts are of this magnitude.

In an e-mail to university administration, state legislators and other community leaders, Reilly laid out a plan by ASUN designed to lobby lawmakers and inspire students to protest budget cuts.

“The time for diplomacy has ended and the time has come for activism,”Reilly said in the e-mail.

The plan calls for a three-part course of action including a human interest campaign Reilly hopes will “put a face on these cuts,”a campaign to educate students on the magnitude of the cuts and to organize a protest in Carson City during the first budget hearing Jan. 27.

Two students, Corinna Cohn and Samuel Owens, decided not to wait until the 27th to head to Carson City and protest. Cohn created a Facebook group and sent out invitations in an attempt to get people to Carson City to demonstrate.

When only herself and Owens showed up, the pair decided to still make signs and protest as planned.

With one student on each side of the busy street in front of the Nevada State Legislature, the two held signs that read “Don’t cut our future”and “Save grads,”eliciting honks of support from passing cars.

“The truth is, I supported the earlier cuts because I felt everyone needed to chip in to solve to budget crisis,”Cohn said. “But this is too much. It will destroy the university.”

Gibbons released his budget proposal with his State of the State address on Thursday. In the speech, he mentioned higher education only briefly: “While higher education reductions will bring challenges to the system, I want to note that we are still spending 13.7 percent of our total general fund budget on higher education, as compared to the national average of 11.2 percent.”

Reilly said he is confident the legislature would not cut as much from UNR’s budget as Gibbons suggested, but still worries about how high the cuts will be.

“We have no idea what it can go down to. A 20 percent cut, even a 15 percent cut is huge,”he said. “That’s the really hard part, nobody knows just what to do.”

No one in Gibbons’ office was available for comment Friday afternoon and no messages were returned by publication.

Jay Balagna and Nick Coltrain can be reached at editor@nevadasagebrush.com .

Click here to view ASUN’s plan to fight the budget cuts.

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• UNR to cut $11 mil from budget: majors, CABNR at risk
• Assembly discusses reducing proposed NSHE cuts from 10 percent to 5