NORTH VS SOUTH FUNDING IN NSHE

NORTH VS SOUTH FUNDING IN NSHE.   For over 30 years, Senator Bill Raggio, who was smarter and more effective than all the Southern Nevada Legislators combined, outmaneuvered and outflanked the entire group of Southern Nevada Senators and Assemblyman in ensuring that the Northern schools, even when State funding of the entire System was totally inadequate, got more than the North’s fair share of State funds to support the Northern Higher Education Schools.  I have no criticism of Raggio for representing the people who elected him.  I do criticize the Southern Nevada Legislators, both in the Senate and the House for being out maneuvered each and every time the division of State funds was made.  Just to show you the unfair distribution of the State funding, if UNLV had the same formula for its funding as the formula to fund UNR, under the most conservative estimates, UNLV would have received an additional $20 million each of the past 30 years.  $600 million is one hell of a large amount for the Southern Nevada Legislators to have failed to obtain. 

 

Clark County alone brings in about 3/4 of the total state general fund revenue, with the rest of the state generating about 1/4. But Clark County gets about 50% of the total NSHE budget even though it has 75% of the higher education students.  The rest of the state gets 50% of the NSHE budget when it generates about 1/4 of the state general fund revenue and has 1/4 of the total state population. Who thinks that makes sense and how can this possibly be justified?