Nevada Maintains Mandate for Higher Ed Staff, Fires Unvaccinated

Hundreds of unvaccinated employees who work at public colleges and universities in Nevada were fired Friday, a day after state Board of Regents voted to keep a staff vaccine mandate in effect, officials said.

The Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents on Thursday deadlocked 6-6 on a measure to repeal the staff vaccine mandate and then rejected a measure to push the effective termination date back two weeks. Without majority support for a repeal, the mandate – which Gov. Steve Sisolak and the Nevada Faculty Alliance support – remained in effect. Employees who did not provide proof of vaccination by Friday faced termination.

Higher education officials said Friday that 379 employees were being terminated, 188 attribution employees ended their contracts and 18 more voluntarily resigned. Employees who are fired can seek reinstatement if they show proof of vaccination in January, regents said.

“The pandemic has underscored the importance of delivering a safe and effective in-person educational experience for our students and the vaccine will help our institutions achieve that goal,” Regent Amy Carvalho said in a statement.

With the staff mandate remaining in effect, universities are set to begin the semester with a mandate on staff and without one on students. Last week, an emergency mandate imposed on students by the state Board of Health expired and a state legislative panel on a 6-6 vote decided against making it permanent.

Regents in support of the mandate said it was the best way to maintain health on campuses, while those opposed said it was unfair to impose a mandate on staff but not on students.

The decision to uphold the mandate arrives as the spread of COVID-19 accelerates in Nevada. In the Las Vegas area – where preparations were underway to host thousands of tourists on New Years’ Eve – officials on Friday said 3,363 new cases had been reported a day earlier. The spike broke the Southern Nevada Health District’s previous record for the most cases reported in a single day.

Kyra Morgan, Nevada’s state biostatistician, said Thursday that sequencing test samples suggested at least one-fourth of new cases were the omicron variant, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The 14-day moving average for cases statewide stood at 1,072 as of Wednesday, the latest average available, down from 1,114 on Tuesday.

The cases reported daily – as measured by a 14-day moving average – had remained below 1,000 since the end of September, after dropping to a low of 150 in early June and then rising to 1,184 in mid-August.

Though Morgan warned about the contagious nature of the variant and the lack of restrictions that businesses were subject to at this time last year, DuAne Young, Sisolak’s policy director, said that Nevada would remain focused on staying open while also prioritizing safety.

Young highlighted vaccination prevention efforts and pre-empted criticism that may accompany images of raucous celebrations amid a variant-fueled surge.

“It’s not business as usual in Nevada,” Young told the Las Vegas Sun. “Normally, with past New Year’s Eve celebrations, it would be a much bigger gathering than what we’re expecting.”

They expect the surge underway to increase the 14-day average in the coming weeks.

Associated Press writer Scott Sonner contributed reporting from Reno. Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Topics Nevada