Amid expectations of a budget hole between $68 million and $124 million through the end of the next fiscal year, the Board of Regents unanimously amended the system’s governing code Friday in a move that would allow the body to enact system-wide furloughs of at least one day of the 2020-2021 academic year. 

The change also removes the application of “financial exigency” — or a financial situation so severe that it threatens the existence of the institution — from the system’s definition of furloughs, and allows for actions by either governor, Legislature or regents to authorize those furloughs for faculty contracts by July 1. 

In April, regents approved a preliminary budget proposal that included cut scenarios of 6, 10 and 14 percent for fiscal year 2021, which begins in July. Under the two deepest cut scenarios, the system would enact furloughs of 2.3 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, amounting to six or 12 days of furloughed time overall. 

A more concrete budget is expected to emerge this summer following wider budget decisions from the governor and Legislature. 

Some faculty, including UNR Faculty Senate Chair Brian Frost, expressed concerns that a lack of a cap on possible furlough days could spiral upward into potential layoffs or layoff-like furloughs. Instead, Frost asked regents to pursue language that limits any furloughs to no more than two furlough days per month. 

“We certainly appreciate the desire to have flexibility, but the lack of a cap and the very short notice that is allowable for the implementation of the furloughs in this code — 10 days notice is all you get — I really feel compelled to ask that a cap be added here,” Frost said. “That would provide some flexibility for NSHE and our institutions, but also provide a limit to the impacts on the students, our mission and the faculty.”

But Chancellor Thom Reilly and board Chair Jason Geddes disagreed with those concerns, saying in part that no furloughs would be approved without the consultation of faculty across the system’s eight institutions. 

“I understand the concern, I think, as the chancellor pointed out, we have not taken any of these budget actions without consulting with the faculty, and any furlough would have to be approved by this board,” Geddes said. “So, at an open public meeting, this board will discuss and determine, and if we weren't comfortable with more than two days, that would be a decision of this board,”

In a separate motion and in another sign of the wide-ranging effects of the pandemic, regents also approved an acceleration of the timeline to select a new president for UNLV to the end of July. 

It was a unanimous decision from the regents, who expressed concerns that other universities across the country have sped up selection timelines and that some of the finalists for the UNLV job are candidates in other national searches.

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