Nevada Faculty Alliance
Nevada Faculty Alliance
NFA News
NFA Legal Defense Committee addresses salary equity, hostile working conditions, short-notice terminations
By Elizabeth
Francis, Chair
NFA Legal Defense/Committee A
Legal Defense/Committee A has worked hard through the late spring and summer on behalf of Nevada Faculty Alliance membership - and, in fact, on behalf of all faculty in the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE). Workplace issues abound at this writing, some continuing from the last academic year, some new.
Salary Equity: Update
Readers of this column will remember last year's analysis of salary equity issues, particularly as they affect nursing.
During the spring of 2002, the Board of Regents enacted a "difficult to hire" policy. It allowed community colleges - where salaries are normally set by a faculty member's strict placement on a step system - to search for and hire new faculty in specified fields, using variant methods of step placement.
This hiring policy immediately affected nursing since, as most readers know, a shortage of nurses and nurse educators is endemic nationwide. The policy was thereafter enacted in discernibly different ways across the NSHE community college system. Some institutions brought salaries of existing long-term faculty into line with the new hires; others did not.
Though the universities and Nevada State College were not directly affected by the "difficult to hire" policy, salary equity issues in nursing were in play there as well.
During 2005-2006, these issues were brought forward as a grievance filed by long-standing tenured nursing faculty at one institution; the complaint included the resulting disparities and resulting morale effects. NFA assisted the grievants in this effort.
In response, the NSHE gathered salary and qualifications data in nursing and formed a system-wide nursing salary equity study committee to address the problems outlined above.
All institutions are represented on the committee including the NFA.
We are happy to report that one NSHE institution (not a community college) is already ameliorating salary disparities. We trust others will do the same. The nursing equity committee will continue its work this fall.
Workplace Distrust/Hostility
Faculty in a few departments across the NSHE face workplace hostility issues of one kind or another. Regularly, over the past year, Human Resources and/or affirmative action personnel have conducted investigations under processes not directed by faculty senates.
Some of those processes are legally defined, some institutionally defined. Given confidentiality issues, such investigations are generally secretive, giving those affected little access to information which may affect their situations.
Occasionally, departments are put into receivership. Sometimes complaints are silenced. Sometimes due process is at issue. Sometimes employment is seriously affected.
NFA works regularly with members facing such situations.
We note that receivership is a particularly difficult situation, a situation to be avoided if at all possible. NFA recently helped to conclude receivership in one department through an agreement between faculty and administration.
Short Notice Terminations
The NFA has been working on the issue of short notice terminations and the devastating effects they cause for teaching and research faculty. Sometimes contracts permit short notice terminations in specific financial situations. It is important for faculty to read carefully the fine print in contracts presented to them. Questioning contract language is necessary.
The UNR Faculty Senate will this year take up contract provisions for soft money, non-tenure-track faculty. The NFA applauds this initiative.
NFA Legal Defense/Committee A Process
The Nevada Faculty Alliance seeks to resolve conflicts as early as possible, as simply as possible, in the interests of faculty members and institutions alike.
Often, simplicity works well; correspondence and meetings can resolve a problem. Sometimes resolutions are more difficult to achieve.
The major issues described briefly above represent conflicts where resistance to resolution was evident -even though reasonable solutions had been presented by the NFA, a faculty member, a faculty group or other entity.
The NFA seeks to preserve collegiality while resolving conflicts. As we have written many times in the past, the NFA encourages members to discuss problems early.
If you have a conflict, please call your Committee A representative and/or your Chapter president without delay.
Finally, we would like to remind readers that NFA's Legal Defense/Committee A policies and procedures are available on the NFA web site www.unr.edu/nfa.
NFA works on retiree health benefit issues
During the last legislative session, an effort was made to stop any state subsidies for new hires after they retire. The proposal caused considerable concern among members of the Nevada Faculty Alliance (NFA) and other public employee groups.
This effort was the result of new federal rules requiring all governmental entities to show the projected liabilities associated with future health plan commitments to employees. Showing these liabilities could have a negative impact on the state's bond rating, thus driving up the cost of any projects that require borrowing funds.
The proposal would have allowed all new hires to remain in the state health plan (PEBP), but they would have been forced to bear the full cost of participation after they retired.
The NFA worked against this proposal, joining in the effort with other public employee groups and the Retired Public Employees of Nevada (RPEN). The proposal passed the Senate but was never heard in the Assembly.
Thus the effort died in the 2005 session, but it will be reintroduced in the 2007 session, according to Jim Richardson, NFA lobbyist, who testified against the proposal last year.
The main objection to the proposal was that it would leave newly hired faculty with no alternatives for paying health care costs after they retire. This seemed a draconian solution to the problem posed by the new federal regulations.
Richardson had testified that the proposal was bad public policy because it discouraged faculty from retiring. He also noted that research has shown that if faculty members know they will lose health care coverage or subsidies, they are more prone to remain in their positions for a longer time. He also noted that having no health care subsidy for retirees makes it harder to hire and retain senior level people within Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) institutions.
An NFA proposal to ameliorate the effects of the plan was carried as an amendment by Senators Dina Titus and Bob Coffin, but it lost on an 11 to 10 vote in the senate.
That proposal would have paid a state match of up to $5,000 per year if a new hire established a health saving account in the state's deferred compensation program.
Conversations on this matter have taken place with Governor Kenny Guinn and other state legislators about how to deal with this issue. Recently,
Richardson and RPEN Executive Director Marty Bibb traveled to Las Vegas to meet with Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, who invited them in for a discussion of the issue. Richardson also addressed this issue with Sen. Bill Raggio, Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie and other legislators.
Regents approve budget request
By Jim
Richardson, Lobbyist
Nevada Faculty Alliance
The Board of Regents, at their August meeting in Elko, approved the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) budget request that will be submitted to Gov. Kenny Guinn and the 2007 session of the state leglislature. The budget is submitted in several sections. The major part is to support the on-going operation of NSHE institutions.
Most of this portion of the request is based on a set of state-wide formulas that allocate available resources to the various institutions. The formulas are driven by enrollment figures and other parameters, such as size and age of existing campus buildings. Part of the overall request includes new programs that regents have approved and for which additional funding is required. This part includes, among other items, a request to raise the level of formula support - from the current 84% to nearly 89%.
If funded, this request would allocate an additional $69 million to NSHE institutions. This would allow campuses to hire much-needed faculty and staff and other necessary expenditures.
An overall increase of 8.51% is requested for operating budgets - the lowest such request in several biennia. The relatively small size of this request is a function of enrollment growth that is slightly lower than anticipated in some NSHE institutions during this biennium. Student fees currently support about 21% of the overall operating budget, and that would increase slightly to 22% in the 2007-08 budget request.
The proposed budget does not include the COLA request approved by the regents and submitted by the faculty senates and the NFA earlier in the year. This item is always handled separately within the Executive Budget prepared by the governor.
Faculty leaders are optimistic that Guinn, who has been supportive of improving faculty salaries, will ask the legislature for a substantial salary increase.
The budget proposal also includes a request to improve the compensation levels for part-time faculty, an issue that has had the strong support of NFA and faculty senates.
Regent Steve Sisolak made this a priority item, earning expressions of gratitude from part-time faculty who attended budget discussions.
Efforts to gain more support for nursing education is a budget item of immediate importance.
This issue was discussed in some depth at the August regents' meeting, as NSHE presidents described their efforts to hire and retain nursing faculty in the face of severe shortages of qualified applicants.
Another major new initiative is the University of Nevada Health Sciences Center, which is strongly supported by Chancellor Jim Rogers and the Board of Regents. This item and the Nursing Initiative are to be submitted separately, not as part of the regular budget request.
The total for new requests is $223.6 million, which does not include the Nursing Initiative and Health Sciences Center budget requests.
The budget request also includes a significant amount for one-shot funds for new buildings and for rehabilitation of older facilities throughout the system.
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