Nevada university expenditures questioned

More controls are needed on administrative and athletic program spending in Nevada's state university system, legislative auditors said Thursday.

In the last of several university system reports ordered by the 2003 Legislature, auditors noted that $13,100 was spent on a chartered plane for a road game by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas men's basketball team - compared with $2,400 spent three days later by the UNLV women's basketball team to fly commercially to the same city.

"You're kidding," said Sen. Bernice Mathews, R-Reno, when the travel spending disparity came up during a Legislative Audit Subcommittee meeting. She said she'll have a lot of questions when the university system's budget is reviewed during the upcoming 2005 session.

In another case, a UNLV employee took a $5,200 chartered flight for a one-day recruiting trip, auditors said.

Although funding came from gifts and other self-supporting revenues, auditors told the subcommittee that the University and Community College System of Nevada should have policies dealing with appropriate use of chartered flights.

Auditors also said the athletic department at the University of Nevada, Reno had unreliable financial data for fiscal 2003, noting that revenues and expenditures were overstated by about $1 million.

Legislators also were told faculty workload has become a big concern because there's no systemwide policy - only individual policies for each school.

Auditors also said the university system's administrative costs are reasonable when compared to total system expenditures, and administrative salaries are comparable with those of their peers in other university systems.

The report notes that 119 top-level system employees make an average of $135,000 a year, adding that most of the executive-level salaries were similar to median salaries elsewhere - although 11 community college executives had above-average paychecks.

Buster Neel, the system's vice chancellor for finance and administration, said all recommended improvements from auditors were accepted.

The auditors' first recommendation was that schools comply with university regents' standards for salary maximums. Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, said the policy should ensure that pay should increase if hours of work go up.