 BARBWIRE
by ANDREW BARBANO From the 3-9-1997 Daily Sparks Tribune / Updated 11-15-2012 This is an edition of the University Scandals 96-97 series, selected installments of which were submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration. Click here to access the archive.
 Chancellor
Richard Jarvis vehemently denied that university officials have
spent money the Board of Regents has not approved — Reno Gazette-Journal,
2-24-97I love great fiction.
"I do not accept allegations that we're inefficient," Jarvis remarked
to legislative money committees while asking for a 28 percent budgetary
increase. This guy is in deep denial.Not one but two major
audits have shown that the University and Community College System of
Nevada is totally out of control. For presiding over the last three
years of this financial fiasco, Chancellor Jarvis gets a fat new contract
extension. Meanwhile, students run short of materials, classes get canceled,
tuition gets jacked up and late charges increase from $25 to $250. Freshmen
get hit $50 for useless orientation tours.Audits
by the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau and Coopers & Lybrand, the
major accounting firm, describe some, but by no means all of the U-Boat's
problems. This thing requires a state grand jury, but snowballs have
better chances in...aw, you know. (For the legislative audit, call Gary
Crews at (702) 687-6815. The C&L report remains available for the
cost of copying at Office Depot on Plumb Lane next to Price/Costco in
Reno.)Crews took pains to point
out that much of the university budget never gets reviewed. The legislature
has some degree of control over only what it authorizes, just 60 percent
of the action. "We estimate that expenditures totaling $235 million
were excluded from the budgetary approval process in fiscal years 1995
and 1996," Crews wrote.Revenue generating programs
and the multifarious university foundations pretty much operate off
the books. Hence, the U-Boat commanders try to launder as much through
the foundations as possible.UNR under Joe Crowley
thinks nothing of deficit spending and unauthorized borrowing of millions.
Just last year, Commander Crowley spent $12,783,522 of UNR's $55 million
unrestricted endowment. At that rate, a fund which took more than 100
years to build will be gone by 2000. C&L showed Chancellor Jarvis spending
$3,099,000 more than his office took in during the 1995-96 fiscal year.
(See the Oct. 27, Nov. 3, Jan. 19 and 26 installments of this series.)Now comes a little chart
buried among a plethora of other documents passed out at a recent regents
meeting. It shows an $11.6 million drop in operating funds from December
'95 to '96. Former system
treasurer Janet MacDonald says this should just not happen,
given increased money from the legislature and jacked up student fees.
"It means deficit spending," she told me.Las Vegas Regent Nancy
Price has demanded an explanation, so far to no avail. She has determined
that the latest hemorrhage comes from Crowleyland.Down in Gomorrah South,
UNLV has taken student parking fees earmarked for a new parking garage
and shunted the money to pay off a failed project to build (I'm not
making this up) frat houses. The Tribune recently published the
story on page one, the Reno Gazette-Journal has yet to print
word one.For more than a decade,
UNR has skimmed student health service moneys to subsidize professional
athletics. On Dec. 8, I reported the Crowley move to skim $1.5 million
from student housing maintenance fees as a band-aid for another mismanaged
program. I also broke the story of how UNR got hit with a $52,000 fine
for late-paying $1.3 million in workers compensation insurance. Jarvis
and Crowley are moving millions more from endowments to operations.
Soon, they will have consumed all the seed corn.I'd ask the U-Boat commanders
to clarify this latest little multi-million matter, but as regular readers
know, the U has blackballed me. I stand shunned, persona non grata,
ordered to submit questions in writing for responses soaked in PR spin
and laundered through lawyers. Sorry, guys. I don't play your corrupt
game, especially after you intentionally broke the state public records
law by halting Tribune access to money records.ST. JOAN AND THE DRAGONS:
Valiant Regent Nancy Price has once again sallied forth alone. She recently
filed a complaint with Nevada Atty. Gen. Frankie Sue Del Papa
alleging that Chancellor Jarvis, Board of Regents Chair Madison Graves
II and Regent
Shelley Berkley intentionally broke the Nevada open meeting
law.As the Barbwire
exclusively reported last Sunday, Jarvis and the two Las Vegas regents
launched a vicious personal attack against Price in the January 30 closed
session scheduled to review Jarvis' performance. Things got so bad that
rookie Reno Regent
Howard Rosenberg stepped in to beg for calm and civility.Nevada law (NRS 241.031)
says that "a public body shall not hold a closed meeting to consider
the character, alleged misconduct, professional competence, or physical
or mental health of an elected member of a public body." The provision
was added by the 1993 legislature after then-regent and now Lt. Gov.
Lonnie Hammargren took issue with some financial shenanigans. A
closed-door censure attempt by other regents really ticked off state
lawmakers, who ordered that trashing elected officials must henceforth
happen in broad daylight.Longtime U-Boat lawyer
Don Klasic was present at both the Hammargren and Price private
pillagings. This time, he reminded the offending officials of the new
law.The entire board, including
Price, plus the chancellor could be removed from their positions if
found guilty of a willful violation. After Klasic's warning, they should
have stopped the inquisition. The courageous Price chose to stay inside
and fight back rather than walk out, jeoparding herself the most by
her own complaint.Mrs. Price told me she
thought the closed door attack was well planned."From things that went
on inside, it was clearly prepared in advance, and that can be shown.
It was a premeditated, malicious, repeated offense. They knew it was
a violation. It meets every criterion of the law as a violation," Price
told me. She says she has witnesses whom Berkley told of an unannounced,
emergency regents meeting just before the closed session. I have spoken
to one who confirms Price's statement.After
the legally questionable closed-door firefight, Berkley pulled a publicity
stunt. In the presence of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Natalie
Patton and UNLV Rebel Yell writer William Puchert,
Berkley hurled.
"Shame
on you, Nancy," she said. "You don't give a rat's ass about higher education
in Nevada. For some reason, you are trying to damage the chancellor
and the system," Berkley spat. ©
Andrew Barbano Andrew
Barbano is a Reno-based syndicated columnist and 28-year Nevadan.Barbwire by Barbano
has appeared in the Sparks Tribune since 1988. This column originally
published 3/9/97.Reprints
of the UNR financial scandal newsbreaks remain available for the cost
of copying at
Nevada Instant Type in Sparks and both Office Depot Reno locations. |
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Copyright © 1982, 1996, 1997, 2006, 2010, 2012 Andrew Barbano
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