Posted by Webmaster on December 21, 2008 under Higher Ed, K-12, Labor, News, Tax Structure
This morning’s Las Vegas Sun featured a guest column from state government economist Elliot Parker. In his column, Parker lays out his case for more tax hikes, which will be required to hire more government employees and give them higher wages. You can read his column here.
Parker’s column essentially says Nevada’s people have been terribly chinzy when it comes to funding government, particularly as compared to other states. It would be a mistake, he implies, to not raise taxes and further expand government.
As an economist, government or not, Parker should be embarrassed by his intellectual dishonesty.
He writes:
According to the most recent version of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, only 5.5 percent of Nevadans work for the state or local governments, the lowest share in the 50 states by far.
This is probably a true statement, although the Statistical Abstract of the United States is very large, and Parker should offer a more detailed attribution. However, it presents only one half of what’s wrong with Nevada’s structure of government.
The very same authority (the Statistical Abstract of the United States) also says our government employees are paid the six highest of all states. Here is the Statistical Abstract of the United States. Table 448 – here is a direct link – column M details average earnings in 2006, the most recent year reported. [Subsequent correction: column M details local government only. Column J details state government, where Nevada ranks sixteenth, still above the national average.]
These wage numbers – in which Nevada ranks the sixth highest state – do not reflect Nevada’s exceptionally generous benefits package.
All of Nevada’s government employees participate in perhaps the only “defined benefit” retirement plan found in the entire state, public or private sector. And for local government and school employees in Clark and Washoe County – well over half of all state and local government employees in Nevada – taxpayers foot the entire bill.
To put it in terms that most taxpayers can understand, where we lose 6.2% of our paycheck to fund social security, our government employees do not. So, for a given wage, they take home a bigger paycheck. (The rest of Nevada government employees, by the way, fund half of their own retirement plans out of their paychecks but it’s over 10% rather than 6.2% – on the other hand, they get alot more retirement income and retire much younger than the rest of us.)
If you factor in how government retirement works in Nevada compared to the five states that outrank us in average government pay, we’d likely rank higher than sixth.
Nevada’s “structural deficit” lies in giving government unions too much power, which has resulted in our having the fewest government employees per thousand residents (dutifully reported by Parker) who are paid at or near the top of America’s government pay scale (incredibly omitted by Parker).
Parker next rambles down the taxes-per-capita path without attributing his statistics. For example:
Adding in spending by local governments, Nevada ranks 48th in government spending as a share of income.
Since the Statistical Abstract of the United States does not explicitly calculate this, he owes us a peek at the bar napkin he scratched his out on.
Here’s mine:
Statistical Abstract of the United States, Table 424, column B has total revenue by state for 2005. Table 12, column AK, has 2005 population estimates, which appear to be overstated for Nevada. Nevertheless, you can put the two of those tables together to calculate tax revenue per person. Nevada ranks 29th, at $7,868 per person.
Since this clearly does not support the “chintzy Nevadans” refrain, and since Nevada’s historically modest government has not surprisingly produced a society with a robust economy, low poverty and high incomes, Parker had to track down average income levels. They’re here, in table 684, column M (unfortunately, this lists family median income by state for 2006, which is not quite average income for 2005, but it’s close).
And Nevada ranks 42nd, ahead of 8 states. Not 48th.
Parker finishes up with the now almost-legendary deception that:
The Tax Foundation reports that Nevada has the next-to-lowest tax burden in the nation, just slightly above Alaska. That ranking is roughly where we have been since the 1970s.
The Tax Foundation actually found that while we rank low on the taxes we assess on ourselves, we rank high on the taxes we assess from non-residents (tourists), and at the national median for total spending per capita. Once again, Parker selects a deceptively small subset of the available information to lead readers to an incorrect conclusion.
In case his subtle sins of omission are not enough, Parker finishes with a couple of whopping lies:
…there are also many things the private sector cannot efficiently provide. Like national defense, affordable and available public education is one of these.
and
Unlike most other states, Nevada has no private universities, so this is an important responsibility.
These are really the heart of the matter for Parker. As a government economist in Nevada, he’s been enjoying doubled cost-of-living raises for years (once for inflation and again from the NSHE “merit” program under which almost all professors get an extra COLA bump). And if we don’t raise taxes, he may not get either next year.
Of course the private sector can efficiently provide education. In Las Vegas, for example, Faith Lutheran‘s middle school tuition was $7,260 in 2006 including capital costs and debt service; that same year, Nevada public school funding was $7,345 not including capital costs and debt service.
And there are a growing number of private colleges in Nevada, including: Touro College, Sierra Nevada College, DeVry University, National University, ITT Technical Institute, University of Phoenix, Morrison University, University of Southern Nevada, with my apologies to the many more I don’t have time to list.
Posted by Webmaster on November 11, 2008 under Higher Ed
Here is an excellent article by the chair of UNLV’s Faculty Senate. Dr. Nasser Daneshvary responds to a social work professor who wrote a series of Sunday opinion articles portraying a dismal state of affairs and even darker future – unless Chancellor Jim Rogers gets his way and raises taxes.
Dr. Daneshvary agrees that UNLV is severely underfunded, but nevertheless has some shining areas of excellence.
- Enrollment appears to be increasing in key areas.
- Entrance standards were raised to a 3.0 high school GPA this fall.
- UNLV was the 4th fastest growing university in America in research output, during a time when the top-200 universities were flat or declining.
- UNLV is top-ranked in advertising research.
Mostly, he correctly notes, UNLV is only 50 years old – compared with Rutgers, which is pushing 250 years old. Rutgers was the comparison institution in the dark portrait painted by the social work professor.
I believe UNLV will continue to be underfunded as long it depends so heavily on state taxpayers. Rutgers, for example, only gets 25% of its funding from New Jersey state taxpayers where UNLV gets 44% of its funding (including capital) from Nevada state taxpayers.
Of course, for some, Nevada families will never pay enough taxes. Some people will always think UNLV underfunded, just as some people today say Rutgers is underfunded.
Posted by Webmaster on November 11, 2008 under Dental School
UNLV’s Dental School was created on a promise – now proven false – that it would not cost Nevada taxpayers anything. Rebecca Ward from Dayton, NV, emailed legislators in 2005…
I am writing this e-mail to express my thoughts regarding the Dental School. I am a retired State employee. When the Dental School was first introduced to the legislators, I was the budget analyst in the Department of Administration who prepared the Executive Branch budget for the Division of Health Care Financing and Policy.
I will never forget how Senator Rawson pushed through his plans for the Dental School. It was at a time when all budgets were severely restricted from introducing new programs due to State fiscal problems. All new programs were to be justified through an extensive “business plan” process. Senator Rawson used his considerable power to push this program through without the normal “business plan” checks and balances. Instead, he convinced his colleagues that this program could be funded primarily through Medicaid funds, Intergovernmental Transfer Account funds, and other miscellaneous funding. He also claimed that there was a severe shortage of dentists in Nevada and that the school would alleviate this shortage.
It is my opinion that the Dental School was not properly justified and that it was pushed through at the final legislative hours for purely political purposes.
A Review Journal editorial reported the same information…
The sponsors’ initial promise was that Nevada’s dental school would cost the state nothing — Medicaid funds that foot dental care for poor children would simply be channeled to the new school, covering its entire budget in exchange for the instructors’ willingness to perform the needed charity work “out the back door,” as it were.
When that turned out to be illegal, a new pair of schemes was hatched. The state contracted with Sierra Health to handle the Medicaid contract — paying that firm a percentage of the take for this legal “cover” — and meantime the state bought out three private Southern Nevada dental practices, the intention being to take over those patient rosters, have dental school faculty tend to those patients’ dental needs, and use the resulting profits to fund the dental school.
But, “The patients more or less found other service providers,” recalls state Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, who replaced Mr. Rawson in Carson City.
The bottom line? In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2004, the dental school collected only $2.35 million of registration fees. The rest of its $26 million budget comes from taxes of one form or another, no matter how they’re routed. That budget is slated to go up next year and every year thereafter.
The problem with closing it down is there are students there who believe they are entitled to their degree – and a number of legislators agree and are willing to raise taxes to fund their belief. However, with many US dental schools now private, perhaps we can find one that would agree to “take over” UNLV’s school, with a state subsidy for existing students until they graduate.
Posted by Webmaster on November 11, 2008 under Diversity
So, folks, here’s the bone.
UNLV’s Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion is paid $163,000 per year. Tack on 30% in benefits, and you’re over $200,000. And that probably doesn’t include her government car. And she’s got a staff of three or four and a travel budget. To do what?
The Las Vegas Sun’s search engine offers several thoughts, but the first story that comes up suggests that “diversity” means applicants who don’t meet academic admission standards should be admitted anyway, if Dr. Clark approves of their race:
…taking race into account in admissions would be an appropriate way to increase diversity — if only Nevadans were ready for that.
“I would like for us to consider race, but I do not think there is support for that in Nevada at the moment,” said Christine Clark, vice president for diversity and inclusion at UNLV.
The second story makes it clear that the wasteful effort is Chancellor Jim Rogers’ idea:
University system Chancellor Jim Rogers in December 2005 mandated the position, which had been a matter of contention with then-President Carol Harter. They quarreled about the need for the position and the job description.
Another newspaper story starts out:
UNLV and UNR administrators are flummoxed, trying to improve their campuses’ reputations by raising academic standards without undermining campus diversity.
Campus diversity, at the expense of raising academic standards, is costing students and taxpayers a quarter-million dollars per year.
Posted by Webmaster on November 11, 2008 under Millenium Scholarship
University Regents are elected to set policy for Nevada’s system of higher education and hire the chancellor. Yesterday, they heard that for the first time in a long time, the amount of financial assistance given to students was lower than the year before.
Some people knew this was coming as early as the year 2001. By then, Governor Guinn had seen the first numbers on his Millennium Scholarship program.
It was pretty easy, then, to extrapolate that first year’s results out into the future and reach the conclusion that the program at capacity would spend about twice its earmarked revenue.
Because it was offered to recent high school graduates, it ramped up slowly, adding one new group of recent grads per year. Thus, there was plenty of advance warning that the program was not sustainable.
The decision was made by the administration to not modify the program – say, by only offering it to our best and brightest students – and instead let it go broke shortly after Governor Guinn’s 2004 re-election.
The Governor and Lieutenant Governor didn’t allow the Legislature and press to see the program’s finances until the 2005 session. That year, the legislature changed the program around to reduce the costs, as well as appropriated tens of millions in additional taxes to prop it up. Today, the Millenium pays for about half of a UNR or UNLV student’s costs, and no longer serves “to keep our best and brightest from leaving the state for their college education.”
