The NFA will continue its decades-long advocacy at the Legislature in the 2025 session that began on February 3rd, as the independent voice for faculty and other professional employees of Nevada's public colleges and universities.  

Here are our highest priorities as approved by the NFA State Board, first the legislative bills we are supporting followed by budget priorities:

Legislation

For Better Higher Education Management: Collective Bargaining Rights! (AB 191)

• Provide collective bargaining rights for NSHE professionals. The 7,200 NSHE rank-and-file faculty are the largest group of public employees in Nevada without collective bargaining regulations in state law.
• Three community colleges have organized to collectively bargain and graduate student workers have rallied support for unionizing.
• Under the current system, management at NSHE dictates the terms of bargaining. NSHE employee associations should have the right to use the Employee-Management Board like other public employees in Nevada.
• The ability to have a say in working conditions leads to better teaching, better student outcomes, and more effective shared governance. Faculty working conditions are student learning conditions!

For Better Higher Education Governance: Mandatory Board of Regents Training!

• Require training for Regents on policy, budgets, open-meeting laws, nondiscrimination, student life, and shared governance to improve Regent knowledge and decision-making.
• While voters retained the Board of Regents as the constitutional higher education governing body, training will promote effective governing and oversight.
• Nevada requires training for K-12 Trustees. NSHE Regents should be equally responsible and accountable to citizens.

Benefits for State Employees Now AND When They Retire: Restoring Retiree Health Benefits! (AB 188)

• Restore retiree health benefits for state employees hired after 2011 and make benefits for Medicare and non-Medicare retirees equitable.
• Nevada state employees who were hired after the Great Recession deserve the same benefits as those hired in good economic years.
• Retiree health benefits for state employees are needed to compete with other Nevada public employers. Reward state public service with retiree benefits.

Budget Priorities

Invest in Campus Safety

• NFA supports NSHE’s ask for both one-time and ongoing funding for critical security to keep our campuses open and serving the public. We must update safety and security so that senseless violence may never again shatter our community. GovRec funding is 72% below what NSHE estimates is necessary.

New Funding Formula

• NFA welcomes changes to the funding formula to support wrap-around services to students, with phased-in implementation to ensure no institution takes a budget cut in the transition.

Full Funding of Cost-of-Living Adjustments for State-Supported NSHE Budgets

• Prior to 2019, NSHE COLAs were funded at 80% (as most other state agencies), but were funded at about 64% since then.
• The cost that isn’t covered by the state is largely covered by student fees--lower state funding means shifting the burden to students or having fewer faculty and course sections to support their education.

5% + 3% Cost-of-Living Adjustments for State Employees

• To maintain current take-home pay after the retirement contribution increase (1.75% on 7/1/2025) and inflation running over 2.5%, COLAs for state employees of 5% FY2026 and 3% in FY2027 are required.
• The purchasing power of salaries for NSHE faculty continues to fall, which means losing top-quality faculty to other states that invest in higher education professionals.

Contact: Kent Ervin, NFA Director of Government Relations, Kent.Ervin@NevadaFacultyAlliance.org