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| NSHE Code Changes/Upcoming Unpaid Leave and Workload Adjustments |
| Tuesday, June 30, 2009 |
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Very soon, you will be receiving communications referencing an emergency code amendment made by the Board of Regents pertaining to unpaid leave/workload adjustments in the biennium beginning July 1, 2009. Below is a brief summary of how the changes affect you and other employees.
Professional and Administrative Staff:
• All professional employees
• President
• Vice presidents
• Deans
• Faculty in residence
• Visiting faculty
• Tenure-track faculty (not yet tenured)
The Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) code has been amended, on an emergency basis, for the 2009-2011 biennium to temporarily reduce salaries through the use of unpaid leave or (for tenured instructional faculty) an unpaid workload increase. Mandatory unpaid leave of 12 days will be required for every professional and administrative full-time staff member in fiscal year 2011 (FY11) — July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011. For B contract faculty, the mandatory unpaid leave will be 8.3 days.
Professional and administrative staff will be given the option of taking all or some of their mandatory unpaid leave days in fiscal year 2010 (FY10) — July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010 — and having it count toward their FY11 reduction. In order words, in consultation with individual supervisors, employees may choose to take any or all unpaid leave days between July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010. For example, employees may choose to take six days in FY10 and six days in FY11 to spread the reduction in salary equally over both years.
All professional and administrative staff (at the discretion of individual supervisors) will also be given the opportunity for voluntary actions to help with the current budget challenges:
• Taking additional unpaid leave days in FY10 that will not be counted toward mandatory unpaid leave days;
• Making a financial contribution to the UNLV Foundation for scholarships or other designations.
For the purpose of retirement calculations, retirement contributions by the employer and employee will be made for all unpaid leave days, up to a maximum of 24 over the biennium. In this manner, retirement and all other benefits are calculated as if an employee worked during the unpaid leave days.
Assuming the state revenue and UNLV enrollment projections hold, we should be able to balance our biennial budget without further budget reductions or eliminations of filled positions.
Tenured Faculty, Associate Deans and Department Chairs:
NSHE code has been amended, on an emergency basis, for the 2009-2011 biennium to temporarily reduce salaries through the use of workload increases or alternatively, through unpaid leave. Tenured instructional faculty will be given the opportunity to increase their teaching workload or take unpaid leave of 8.3 days (for B contracts, 11 days for "B-11" contracts, or 12 days for "A" or equivalent contracts) in fiscal year 2011 — July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011.
Tenured instructional faculty will be given the option of increasing their workload or taking all or some of their mandatory unpaid leave days, if that option is selected, in fiscal year 2010 — July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010 — and having it count toward their FY11 total. For example, faculty may choose to increase their teaching load in the first year of the biennium to reduce their teaching load in the second year.
Similar to the other employee categories, tenured faculty, associate deans, and department chairs will also be given the opportunity for voluntary actions to help with the current budget challenges:
• Taking additional unpaid leave days in FY10 that will not be counted toward mandatory unpaid leave days;
• Making a financial contribution to the UNLV Foundation for scholarships or other designations.
For the purpose of retirement calculations, retirement contributions by the employer and employee will be made for all unpaid leave days, up to a maximum of 24 over the biennium. In this manner, retirement and all other benefits are calculated as if an employee worked during the unpaid leave days.
In Closing:
As we finalize the implementation of our 2009-10 budget, we should reflect on what a long, arduous, and uncertain road we have traveled to get here. These unpaid-leave and workload-adjustment programs are just part of the shared sacrifices we have made throughout these last 18 months. Starting with our first budget reductions in January 2008, we have seen increasingly pessimistic state revenue projections and calls for unconscionable cuts to higher education. We have twice reduced and eliminated monies and positions so that our budgets balanced. During this recent legislative session, we also heard strong voices from inside and outside our campus stand up for education. Thanks to campus community for the continuing support of one another and the long-term health of the university. It has always been about our students — present and future.
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