Regents to review rising parking costs

The Board of Regents finance committee decided Thursday to review the rising charges for parking at the University of Nevada Reno and Las Vegas campuses.

The issue was brought to the board by Albert Carlson and Scott MacKenzie, representing the State of Nevada Employees Association. They said fees for all parking began to rise at UNR in 1999.

But Carlson said the campus also made more subtle changes that raised the cost of parking for students and staff, primarily by reducing the number of low-cost parking spaces and turning many of them into higher-priced spaces.

He said of the 3,800 low-cost parking slots available on the Reno campus in 1999, only 900 remain.

MacKenzie said staff members were never charged for parking until the campus asked them to pay a token $1 in 1998. Now, he said, classified staff must pay the same as everyone else - as much as $320 a year. He said since there is no alternative but to pay, it could be regarded as a cut in the net pay approved for classified workers by the state.

He said regents should look into the increasing costs for students and classified employees.

Finance Committee Chairman Mark Alden asked both UNR and UNLV to report on the cost of campus parking and how much it has gone up over the past five or six years at the board's October meeting. Only the two universities charge students for parking and only UNR charges employees.