High salaries provide fodder for state’s anti-tax crowd

Anti-tax groups in Nevada have long made the case for a smaller, more-efficient public sector. Raising taxes is a ploy, say groups like the Nevada Policy Research Institute, by public officials who want to protect their jobs and their big, fat salaries.

This concept looked like less of a joke this week after the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the number of government workers in Nevada earning annual salaries of $100,000 or more has quadrupled in the past five years.

More than 1,800 public employees earned six-figure incomes last year in Nevada. In 1997, that number was 489. The lion’s share of top earners are in Nevada’s universities. For example, more than half of the top 25 salaries are earned by professors at the University of Nevada Medical School.

It’s a market-driven issue, Dr. Stephen McFarlane, med school dean, told reporters.

McFarlane makes $164,775 a year, according to information posted at a UNR student Webzine, the Zephyr (zephyr.unr.edu). A story by Zephyr staff writer Robert Kauffman asks other students: “Ever wonder how much administrators at the University of Nevada, Reno, make? How about professors?” This is followed by salaries listed in alphabetical order—and from highest to lowest.

For starters, Kauffman writes, President John Lilley came to Nevada under a four-year contract that included a $199,000 annual salary, an $18,000-per-year housing allowance and a $6,000-per-year car allowance. Total: $223,000 or so.

Unusual? Probably not. The average salary for a University of California chancellor in 2001 was $280,000, when administrators arguing for raises there complained that their pay was about 33 percent lower than that of a comparison group.

And University of Southern Mississippi students were flustered when they learned recently that their president nabbed, in addition to a $200,000-plus salary, travel and other allowances, an annual $31,495 for housekeeping services and another $10,932 for grounds keeping.

Though the UNR student site has garnered some controversy, all of the salary information about the public employees is publicly available. UNR’s budget—complete with names and salaries—has been typically open for perusal at Getchell Library. The topic of faculty salaries is also a perennial story favorite for the student newspaper, the Sagebrush.

Editor’s note: Deidre Pike is a part-time instructor at the University of Nevada, Reno.