Loading ...Decision Comes Back To Haunt Us
February 8th, 2008University Regents are elected to set policy for Nevada’s system of higher education and hire the chancellor. Yesterday, they heard that for the first time in a long time, the amount of financial assistance given to students was lower than the year before.
Some people knew this was coming as early as the year 2001. By then, Governor Guinn had seen the first numbers on his Millennium Scholarship program.
It was pretty easy, then, to extrapolate that first year’s results out into the future and reach the conclusion that the program at capacity would spend about twice its earmarked revenue (which was a share of the proceeds of the “Tobacco Settlement”).
Because it was offered to recent high school graduates, it ramped up slowly, adding one new group of recent grads per year. Thus, there was plenty of advance warning that the program was not sustainable.
The decision was made by the administration to not modify the program - say, by only offering it to our best and brightest students - and instead let it go broke shortly after Governor Guinn’s 2004 re-election.
The 2005 Legislature was the first session I remember being given copies of the program’s finances. That session, the legislature changed the program around to reduce the costs, as well as appropriated tens of millions in general fund to prop it up. I led the Senate subcommittee which ended up with a proposal to give full scholarships to a few students. However, we lost to the Assembly subcommittee, which instead wanted to give much smaller scholarships to many more students. Today, the Millenium pays for about half of a UNR or UNLV student’s costs, and no longer serves “to keep our best and brightest from leaving the state for their college education.”
The results are what you’re reading about in today’s Review Journal.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Bob,
Was their an error in my previous posts concerning my rebutting your allegation that you accomplished anything relevant to your assertions above? Tell me where the public record was in error.
Is it not true that your ammendments were never returned to comittee, as you were directed on June 2, 2005, and thus not voted on in your finance committee? That the bill never made it to the Assembly until the next to last day of the session? That you agreed to pour more money into the Program every year? That Chairman Raggio called your suggestions “drastic changes”? Further, that Senator Raggio said no one ever agreed that the Millenium Scholarship was a”full ride”? That the Program’s $10,000 per student was meant for every qualifying student and not only the top 8,500 high school students on the proficiancy exam? That you made a motion to keep qualifications the same as they were in 2004?
Recall in the first year when the Program was proposed that it was going to sunset around 2007? I quess ya’ll don’t have the backbone to stop funding a free college education…it is one of the funding items that drove California to the brink years ago. Let the program die.
You didn’t see “this” coming. Matter of fact, every COLA for the Millenium was matched by a COLA by the Regents! Tail wagging the dog.
I like you, Bob, except when you don’t exactly do the “straight talk” express.
February 9th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I like you too, Dina. But you are correct - a number of your rebuttal components are incorrect.
February 10th, 2008 at 7:05 am
The Millenium Scholarship boondoggle has been and will continue to be a HUGE ripoff of Nevada Taxpayers. If Dina
Titus is who Bob is referring to above let me say this to you.
YOU ARE A DOUBLE DIPPING RIP OFF WHINING BULLYING B—-.
SHUT UP AND DO YOUR WORTHLESS JOB OF SHOWING UP “SOMETIMES”
TO TEACH YOUR 2 CLASSES A WEEK, IF YOU FEEL LIKE IT, TO COLLECT YOUR BLOATED UNION PAYCHECK OF $90,000 PLUS PER YEAR.
YOU ARE THE LOWEST OF THE LOW. I AM SOOOO HAPPY THAT STUDENT CAUGHT YOU TRYING TO THREATEN HER FOR VOTING FOR SOMEONE OTHER THAN YOU. “I’M NOT HAPPY”. NEITHER ARE WE WITH YOUR
PATHETIC PERFORMANCE.
LEAVE BOB ALONE, HE’S THE ONLY SENATOR THAT STANDS FOR THE TAXPAYERS. HE HAS A REAL JOB, NOT ONE THAT SUCKS OFF OF THE TAXPAYERS TO PAY FOR YOUR WORTHLESS POLITICAL OPINIONS TO
BE DISPENSED TO STUDENTS WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS.
P.S. LEARN HOW TO SPELL AND TO USE CORRECT WORDS, THEIR SHOULD BE THERE. A COLLEGE PROFESSOR? I’M NOT HAPPY AND YOU CAN QUOTE ME ON THAT!!!!!!!!!!!
February 13th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
I’m all broken up over the failure of Kenny’s little Legacy Maker. Now here are the “facts”.
Kenny had Frankie Sue file a lawsuit against the tobacco companies for “victimizing” Nevada residents with false claims and research. She and the attorneys that she hired to pursue the case all clamored in court about how the evil tobacco companies had hooked so many people on their products with advertisement, false research and false claims. The State of Nevada was out hundreds of millions of dollars in care for the victims and would continue to pay for the cost of treating the poor tobacco addicts.
They wanted billions to pay for medical care and new programs to educate people on the evils of tobacco.
Like a bunch of morons, the jury agreed and awarded the State billions or millions or whatever.
As you would expect, the politicians saw green and began spending it, in particular the aforementioned Frankie Sue and Kenny the RINO. As was admitted to in a live interview on local television, Frankie Sue’s good buddy attorney’s were paid $200,000.00 PER HOUR for their services. Yes that is right and not a typo, $200,000.00 Per Hour. Then Kenny went to work. About 1% of the total was allocated to tobacco awareness campaigns. The other 99% was Kenny’s legacy to Nevada. Since he had done nothing noteworthy during his tenure, he needed something to be remembered by, thus the Millennium Scholarships.
Very wise Kenny. It seems that he and his little group of friends failed to do the math. I’ll explain.
Just how much money was the State supposed to get from the tobacco companies? As it turns out, they paid nothing more than their own attorney fees. The same day that the award was made, they raised the price of a pack of cigarettes $.75 to pay the judgment. In other words, the much-touted “victims” of the tobacco company’s crimes were to pay for the judgment. Isn’t that kind of like taking your daughters rapist to court, finding him guilty and sentencing your daughter to 10 years in jail? Sure looks like it.
After the first year of people that smoke funding every Tom, Dick and Harry’s children’s college education, there were money short falls. Seems like that smokers were buying less tobacco at the inflated price and the revenues began to shrink. I mean, just how much money did he believe the victims had anyway. Now the situation has just gotten worse. On the day of the settlement when my wife and I went to the local smoke shop to purchase cigarettes we were made aware of the price increase. At that time I accurately predicted that there would be a shortfall of money from the sale of cigarettes and that the whole thing amounted to nothing more than a tax increase. Not on just the smokers, when the well ran dry, the funds were taken from “General Revenue” to make up the difference and had steadily increased ever since.
As it turns out, Kenny’s legacy amounts to just another tax increase to all Nevada residents. Another socialist program hits the State budget. Ducky isn’t it?
So for everyone that was lauding it over the smoking population that they (the smokers) were paying for their kid’s college, how does it feel to be included? Kenny and Frankie screwed you and you didn’t even get kissed.
Only in America.
PS As you might expect, the lawyers got their money
William Blanke
North Las Vegas, NV