Communications and calendar

Date:    November 5, 2025

To:       Fiscal Officers

From:   Andrew Clinger, Vice President, Administration and Finance

Re:       Administrative Overhead Service Charge (ASC) Adjustment

Beginning in FY 2026, the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) System Office is implementing a 60% increase in the Campus Assessment Fee charged to each institution. To partially offset this significant increase, the University must adjust its Administrative Overhead Service Charge (ASC) applied to self-supporting program budgets.

While many peer institutions assess rates as high as 24.5%, and a third-party consultant recommended a rate of approximately 10% for University of Nevada, Reno in 2023, the University has maintained a conservative 5% ASC since its implementation two years ago. However, given the magnitude of the new System Office assessment, we will increase the ASC from 5% to 7% effective FY 2026.

We recognize that this adjustment may create some challenges, but it is a necessary step to sustain institutional operations in light of external cost increases. We will continue to evaluate our administrative cost structure to ensure transparency, fairness, and alignment with institutional and NSHE-wide practices.

Thank you for your understanding and continued partnership in maintaining the financial health of the University and supporting the Wolf Pack community.

 

Best regards,

Andrew Clinger
Vice President, Administration and Finance

To: All Faculty and Staff

From: Jeffrey S Thompson, Executive Vice President & Provost

Date: September 9, 2025

Subject: Procedures for Requesting Resources

As part of our commitment to transparency, accountability, and alignment with institutional priorities, I would like to clarify the process for requesting university resources.

To ensure that requests are reviewed carefully and equitably, all proposals must proceed through the established reporting structure. Faculty and staff should submit requests to their department chair. Department chairs will review, provide context, and forward appropriate requests to the college or school dean. Deans will prioritize and, when warranted, bring requests forward to the Office of the Provost for final review and decision. This process ensures that each request is considered within the broader context of departmental, college, and institutional needs.

Each request must include a clear justification describing the specific resource being requested and the intended purpose. The proposal should explain the benefit to students, faculty, and staff, and describe how the request supports the mission and priorities of the university.

In addition, proposals should demonstrate alignment with Wolf Pack Rising, the University’s strategic plan, as well as NWCCU accreditation standards, particularly those related to student learning, institutional effectiveness, and continuous improvement. By connecting requests to these frameworks, we ensure that our resources advance both our long-term goals and our responsibility to meet accreditation requirements.

I appreciate your collaboration in following this process. By working together through our established governance and planning structures, we can make thoughtful, strategic decisions that best serve our students, faculty, and staff.

Thank you for your continued commitment to the success of the University of Nevada, Reno.

• To address a significant budget deficit—projected at $21 million for FY2024 and potentially rising to $31 million in FY2025—the University of Nevada, Reno will implement a 5% Administrative Overhead Service Charge (ASC) on self-supporting revenues, effective FY2024.
• This measure follows a prior 5% state budget reduction and is necessitated by:
  • Partial funding of cost-of-living adjustments.
  • Lower-than-anticipated student enrollment.
• The ASC rate was determined after consultation with a third-party expert and benchmarking against peer institutions, which apply ASC rates ranging from 6% to 24.5%. Although the consultant recommended a higher rate, UNR opted for a conservative 5% to minimize impact.
• The administration acknowledges the challenges this change may present and is committed to supporting departments throughout the implementation process.

Recently we received information from the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE), but the details are still few and far between. OPE confirmed the CARES Act could cover any costs associated with significant changes to the delivery of instruction due to the Coronavirus. However, OPE stated that reporting requirements are still being developed and will announce once completed. In my conversation with Research Compliance, due to limited information on reporting and audit requirements, we are going to treat it like any other federal grants. The University approach for using Cares Act is as follows:

Reporting requirements

• All Expenditures must post into Workday by December 31st, 2020
• For Salary & fringe expenditures, the posted date in Workday is November 30th, 2020
• Effort Reporting will have to be verified
• Expenses must be recorded on your Cares Act worktag
• Submit department/unit plans to PBA by September 1st, 2020 to ensure that the costs are allowable.

Institutional permissible uses

• Flexibility to spend funds as long as it is related to disruption
• Pay faculty who are teaching online (or hybrid)
• Training/PPE/equipment/technology necessary for online instruction
• PPE for in-person classes and all academic and administrative offices
• Litmus test - Was the funds spent on something related to the distribution of campus activities
• If the funding for faculty is coming out of the institutional share, comfortable making expenditures for those purposes
• One of the objectives was to provide sufficient financial support to retain faculty (admin and staff)

Examples of CARES Act plans

• One month salary for Dean, Associate Deans and Fiscal Officer for planning how to manage the scheduling of online and hybrid classes and how to manage budget cuts related to COVID
• Two months salary for Personnel Analyst who is assisting and advising faculty and staff of the Families
• First Coronavirus Response Act (FFRCA) requirements and submitting the request to the absence management team
• Salaries for academic faculty who have transitioned from in-person teaching to online and/or hybrid teaching

For any concerns or questions that may arise, please reach your Budget Liaison. Thank you for your attention to this critical timeline and the details.

With the conclusion of the Legislature's special session yesterday, the President has completed his allocation of budget cut targets this morning. For the University's State appropriated budgets, VP units will be asked for an 11% cut and academic units an 8% cut for FY 21. For all non‐formula State appropriated budgets, there will be a 13.8% cut. You will likely read in the paper that the University was cut 17.5% (or 23%, depending on how it's calculated); however, several sources, including Federal CARES funds, a student surcharge, and excess investment income, mitigated the net impacts.

Furloughs were imposed by the Legislature and are six days in the last six months of the fiscal year. However, furloughs nor the one‐month PEBP employers premium holiday will count towards the percent savings above. The Regents will be acting in the next several weeks to define the parameters of the furlough program and will pass on more information as soon as it's known. The Legislature was fairly restrictive in its furlough language, and I expect exemptions to be few. As of this writing, it appears that classified merit steps continue in FY 21.

Anaplan

To input your revised budgets, Anaplan will be available from July 21 through July 28. All your data from your UNR Budget Model will be carried over to the Revised UNR Budget Model. To obtain your new budget target, please reference target dashboards. If you don't have a target appropriation dashboard, then a supplemental spreadsheet will be provided. 

This Saturday, July 25, Anaplan will be unavailable from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. due to system maintenance.

Items of note: Balancing your FY21 state budget

• We added two columns to the Target Appropriation dashboards, which are Budget Reductions and CARES Act Funding. The CARES Act funding column is the amount of funding that you need to move off of state funds on to self‐supporting funds. Additionally, since a worktag doesn't exist in Workday for the CARES Act funding, a temporary worktag will be assigned in Anaplan.
• If you need to delete a transfer‐in, transfer‐out, or funding distribution approval, please contact your budget liaison to initiate the process.
• For any vacant position considered part of the budget cut, then the base pay should be entered as zero. In the notes column, please use the description: "FY21 Budget cuts."
• If you are delaying a hiring position, then you need to calculate the base pay based on the date of hire.
• You will not have the option to exclude a position from the budget or change the FTE. If you need to make a change, contact your budget liaison to initiate the process.

Microsoft Team meetings

We will be holding 30‐minute informational meetings starting tomorrow at 9 a.m. via Microsoft Teams, which you will be receiving an invitation based on your appropriation.

Finally, with a dose of pessimism, there are two remaining unknowns this fiscal year. First, we are anticipating enrollments are down slightly this fall. Should they fall dramatically, we may have to pull back further. Second, the State's budget is very fragile right now. Should another lockdown occur (similar to what we see in California and other border states), we'll be doing this again. The hiring freeze will remain in place for the foreseeable future, and I continue to request that all non‐essential purchases be held at least until fall enrollments are final.

The Governor's Finance Office announced that it has sent a memo to executive branch directors and agency heads directing all state agencies to prepare proposed budget reserves of 12 percent for each year of the upcoming 2021-23 biennium.

Our reality given this request is that we must proactively plan for any possible type of future budget reduction scenarios, particularly given the persistence of COVID-19 throughout Nevada. As you are well aware, this impacts both our general fund appropriations from the State of Nevada and our self-supporting activities, including residence life, parking, and continuing education.

We understand the sacrifices you have made since the pandemic first hit. Whether it was shifting to remote delivery for University operations in the early days of the pandemic, implementing budget reductions that were requested by a special session of the Nevada State Legislature this summer, or safely and thoughtfully re-opening our campus for the fall semester, the students, faculty, and staff of our institution have shown remarkable patience, understanding, and resilience.

In the University's decision-making process, we will work collaboratively, sharing ideas, transparency, and open communication lines to protect our University's mission. Our efforts are ongoing to save every dollar and avoid non-urgent expenses for the foreseeable future.

This includes:

• Engaging our Deans, Directors, and student leadership to determine the best ways to minimize budget reduction impacts on our core missions;
• A hiring freeze, implemented during the spring 2020 semester, will remain in effect for the remaining of the fiscal year;
• The Board of Regents will be meeting on Nov. 13 to discuss the plan to implement a series of furlough days for the remainder of the fiscal year; and
• We are studying the feasibility of closing selected buildings on campus and limiting on-campus activity between Nov. 30 and Jan. 25 to save utility costs.