NFA Advocacy in Action
Legislature 2009

§ - Formed effective lobbying coalition with other public service employee advocacy groups.
§ - Successfully lobbied for rejection of the governor's proposed $90 million cuts to PEBP health benefits for active and retired employees and their families.
§ - Successfully lobbied for passage and veto override of domestic partner benefits legislation.

§ - Seated 4 representatives (2 from CSN's NFA chapter) on Regents' Personnel Task Force charged with making recommendations for the implementation of SB 433, the 4.6% pay cut mandate.
§ - Submitted recommendations to the task force which were later adopted as BOR policy for the current biennium:
· using personnel cost savings (hiring freezes, etc.) to offset the required pay cuts / furloughs for the biennium's first year;
· minimizing pay cuts for untenured and other faculty not protected by NSHE Code by limiting furloughs to the biennium's second year;
· implementing workload increases as tenured faculty's recovery of cost savings equivalent to furlough;
· upholding Code provisions protecting due process in contract modification for untenured faculty and shielding tenured faculty from pay cuts;
· advising BOR against declaring financial exigency and for making SB 433 changes to Code temporary, applicable to this biennium only;
· requiring institution presidents to confer with their Faculty Senates in making faculty workload adjustments; and
· advocating cost savings plans that preserve the highest rates of student enrollment feasible under current budget realities.

Resolution: Preserve Nevada Higher Education

Be it resolved, we, as members of the CSN NFA, will not accept pay cuts, additional health benefit cuts, additional retirement cuts, and additional budget cuts.

We have been doing so much with so little for so long that we belong in Ripley's Believe It or Not!

If the citizens of Nevada, the Governor of Nevada, the Legislators of Nevada, and the Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education expect us to work as if nothing is hurting, they are critically wrong.  Budget cuts and pay cuts are not the answer: they are aggravating the problem.

We at CSN -- students, staff, faculty, and administration -- have internalized the budget cuts, the furloughs, the benefit cuts, the elimination of COLA, the sacrifice of Merit, and the extra classes and students per class.  This has done nothing to help.  As a matter of fact, we are in a worse place than we were when we started giving up and sacrificing.  A continued aggravation is the chronic and fatal underfunding of CSN and chronic workload overload and insufficient salary
for our faculty.

The public, the governmor, the legislators, and some of our regents may not see how we have dealt with the pain because we are different from the private sector, but that does not mean we have not tightened our belts, cut as much as possible, and had an increase in demand for our services.

The private sector we are asked to emulate is different than we are: when they have to tighten their belts and cut as much as possible, it is because they have decreased demand for their goods and services.  We have increased demand as people figure out that higher education is the way to get out of dead end jobs, unemployment, and lower standards of living.

It is sad that many of the citizens of Nevada, private sector corporate leaders, governor, legislators, and some on the Board of Regents fail to recognize our differences, our value, and the critical notion that preserving Higher Education is the solution to this economic downturn, along with critical restructuring of budgets, funding, and taxes.  Public Higher Education and its workforce are not the problem. We are the solution that private interests fail to see.

Thank you for your support, work, and continued e-mails to our policymakers -- one a day is not too much,

In solidarity,

Shari Lyman, CSN NFA Chapter President

Shari Lyman, Ph.D.
Economics Professor
College of Southern Nevada
Department of Social Sciences
Mail Stop S2C
e-mail:  shari.lyman@csn.edu
office:  702-651-4122
cell:  702-306-2029