UNR Budget: Misplaced Priorities and Diverted Resources
Growth of Executive Staff and Compensation
Part 3B, continuation of Part 3 of our series of articles on the UNR Budget.
Stagnant Academic Faculty Positions
Table 3 below documents the changes in the numbers of academic faculty, administrative staff, and executives at UNR between Fall 2022 and Fall 2023, just over the past year. The number of range A through D administrative faculty grew 12% and the number of executive-level staff grew 15% (net new positions and filled vacancies). But during this year of strong growth for administrative faculty and executive-level personnel, the number of academic faculty remained flat (+3 / 0.3% increase).
Table 3 also shows the salary changes for continuing employees from Fall 2022 to Fall 2023. All faculty, staff, and executives benefited from a 12% COLA and a 1% merit pool on 7/1/2023. Academic promotions from Assistant Professor to Associate or Associate to Full Professor come with a fixed 10% raise at UNR, but administrative and executive salary changes are discretionary. Academic faculty who were promoted had an average combined COLA and raise of 20.5%, while executive-level personnel with a promotion or change of title got an average raise of 33.4%.
Examples of the top 50 raises at UNR (table at link) between Fall 2022 and Fall 2023 include a $108,000 COLA for the Dean of the Medical School, a 34%/$66,000 salary increase for the Vice President of Government Relations and Community Engagement, and upgrading the General Counsel to a Vice President for Legal Affairs with a 19%/$44,000 salary increase.
Without a promotion, the 12% COLA on 7/1/2023 and the 11% COLA to be awarded on 10/1/2024 will bring a faculty member’s take-home salary only back to 2020 in purchasing power after inflation (details in part 7 of this series).
Table 3
Academic, Administrative, and Executive/Administrative Faculty
Fall 2022 to Fall 2023 |
| Category |
Academic Faculty |
Administrative Faculty
(Range A to D) |
Executive & Administrative
Range E |
| Number of employees 10/31/2022 |
1008 |
1103 |
80 |
| Number of employees 10/31/2023 |
1011 |
1231 |
92 |
| Change in number of employees |
+3 |
+128 |
+12 |
| Percent change in number of employees |
0.3% |
12% |
15% |
| Average salary percentage increase for continuing employees with no change in position title |
13.9% |
14.2% |
13.2% |
| Average percentage salary increase for continuing employees with a change in position title |
20.5% |
29.4% |
33.4% |
Source: NSHE public records.
Continuing employees = employees in the category on 10/31/2023, who were also employed at UNR on 10/31/2022. Salary changes are inclusive of the 12% COLA and merit raises from the 1% internal pool on 7/1/2023. |
Expansion of Executive Staff Results in Cuts to Rank-and-File Faculty and Staff in Departments Serving Students
These data document the rapid growth in administrator and executive positions and salaries at UNR during a period of budget cuts, while the number of academic faculty remains flat. Salary adjustments for academic faculty have largely been limited to COLAs and regular promotions in rank. Even if the needs of the University fully justify the new executive positions, it is irresponsible to create them during budget shortfalls and flat enrollments. In the meantime, 5% budget cuts to academic departments and administrative units will result in vacancies and eliminations of positions that directly serve students.
The full impact of hiring decisions on academic programs at the department level is hard to gauge because UNR stopped publishing annual budget reports after 2018.
The public records available to NFA do not indicate the sources of funding at the individual position level. Still, to the best of our knowledge, most of the executive-level positions are funded through state-supported operating budgets (exceptions include Athletics and clinical faculty). That is, increases in executive positions and salaries reduce the available budget for other professional employees.
The central administration’s practice of sweeping vacancy salary savings from academic colleges has varied over the past decades at UNR:
-
The Lilley administration instituted central sweeps and even made departments justify positions based on detailed individual-faculty-level teaching loads, which contributed to serious disparities and low morale.
-
President Glick returned authority over salary savings to college deans to allow them to manage their academic portfolios and respond to challenges and opportunities.
-
President Johnson largely maintained that practice, although new positions from growth were allocated through a centralized decision-making process.
-
The Sandoval administration has gone back in the direction of centralized command and control, thereby assuming full responsibility for decisions and priorities while having limited ability to understand situations facing various departments and programs closest to students.
When salary savings are swept centrally, deans have little to bring to the table when making hiring requests. But it gives the central administration the ability to expand the executive staff and raise their salaries, as has happened since 2020.
###
The information in this series of UNR budget analyses is based on public reports and records, interpreted as accurately as possible given uncertainties in the assumptions used for various reports. Corrections from authoritative sources are welcome. Contact: kent.ervin@nevadafacultyalliance.org.
_________
[1] A UNR Assistant Professor hired at Q1 on the current salary schedule would earn $69,383. Adding the 33.8% fringe rate gives $92,834, or 10.8 positions per million dollars. By the Board of Regents action on December 1, 2023, the salary schedules will be augmented by 10% as of July 1, 2024, giving 9.8 positions per million dollars for future new hires.
Articles in this series:
