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| Board of Regents Actions |
| Monday, June 22, 2009 |
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The NSHE Board of Regents has approved student fee surcharges and policy pertaining to professional staff and academic faculty furloughs and workload adjustments; both the surcharges and policy apply to the next two academic years. The following a summary version of the board actions. You should expect additional updates as more specifics become available.
Registration Fees
· A five percent surcharge for undergraduate students was approved for FY10 & FY11 (five percent the in the first year and an additional five percent in the second year of the biennial funding cycle). This increase brings undergraduate fees up ten percent in each year of the next biennium - graduate student fees were already set at this level. Regents plan to discontinue the surcharge portion of the fee increase at the end of FY11.
· The surcharge is in addition to a five percent per year inflationary increase in registration fees approved by the regents several months ago.
· A 10 percent surcharge for students at the UNLV School of Dental Medicine was also approved.
· The board had previously increased the Law School fees by 75 percent in the first year of the biennium and an additional 11 percent in the second year of the biennium.
Furloughs
Summary
· One temporary change to the NSHE Code, which has the net effect of giving notice to all employees about changes in compensation and workload for FY11 without requiring individual letters to each individual.
· In the spirit of the law, everyone in the system should have some "skin in the game" meaning as many staff as possible should take part in the mandatory unpaid leave program.
· For FY10 (starting July 1, 2009) no UNLV professional employees will be subject to mandatory unpaid furloughs, but voluntary programs will be developed in the near future and communicated to the campus. Additionally, each institution must demonstrate that they are taking the equivalent of the unpaid furlough reductions through other means, such as vacant professional and faculty positions (classified are required to have furloughs for both years of the biennium, therefore unfilled classified positions would only further impact workload for this employee group).
· Everyone will receive the one-year notice of the change in compensation/workload, even if an individual has a notice period that is shorter.
· All professional staff and tenure-track but non-tenured faculty will be subject to one unpaid furlough day per month, effective July 1, 2010. We hope/expect this will be a one year requirement only.
· Tenured faculty will be subject to an unpaid workload increase in FY11 (July 1, 2010), which is the equivalent of the salary reduction for other professional employees. The provost will work with the Deans to define and implement an appropriate plan to measure and track these workload increases, off an FY09 baseline that will be used by the legislature for reporting purposes. It is also expected that all tenured faculty will be offered the opportunity to address this workload increase over the full two years of the biennium. Any tenured faculty who do not wish to participate in the workload adjustment could volunteer to take the unpaid furlough days in FY11.
· The unpaid furlough days will not impact any other employee benefits - retirement, leave accrual, etc. will all be earned at the same rate as if the employee worked the unpaid furlough day.
· Just as with state classified, source of funding for an employees contract does not impact the requirement to address the unpaid furlough days (or workload increase for tenured faculty).
· Unlike with state classified staff members, who come under strict federal wage and hour laws, the unpaid furlough days can be grouped together (and actually this is preferable given the federal wage and hour laws for this group of employees).
· We will also adjust the FY10 letters of appointment to note the change in code action by the board, effective for FY11.
Who is Included
· The president, vice presidents, deans and other tenured faculty members in their administrative capacity.
· Non-tenured and tenure-track faculty, including faculty in residence and visiting faculty
· Professional staff
Who is Excluded
· Contract employees, post-doctoral scholars, part-time instructors/letters of appointment, graduate assistants, hourly-paid employees and student employees
Tenured Faculty
· The provost's office will address change of workload assignments, which will be discussed with deans who will have some flexibility; modified workloads will be based on FY09 teaching requirements, and hopefully will be available as early as FY10. Tenured faculty members have the option of taking unpaid leave instead of a change of workload assignment.
Voluntary Programs
· The measure passed by the board included an option for affected faculty and professional staff to voluntarily "spread" their mandated unpaid leave out over the two fiscal years rather than just take it all in FY11. Essentially, this would entail declaring a certain amount of days to be taken during FY10 that would "count against" the employee's unpaid leave requirement for FY11. We will develop procedures for this option and advise you of it soon.
· Also included was a provision to offer other voluntary programs - we will advise you of these as they become available.
Information Sessions
· Information sessions on the how this affects faculty and professional staff will be offered soon.
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