A professor at the College of Southern Nevada has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state, alleging that CSN stopped paying him and his staff while he was directing a small business program and then failed to reinstate him as director when he complained about the lack of pay.

Kevin Raiford, an economics professor at CSN, previously told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he was forced out of the multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded NV Grow program after refusing to award federal funds to unqualified companies he was pressured to sign by state Sen. Dina Neal, including a company owned by her friend.

Neal, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday, had denied Raiford’s claims last year but was investigated by the FBI after the Review-Journal uncovered the allegations.

Raiford’s lawsuit, filed Thursday, did not mention Neal, but said CSN stopped paying Raiford and other NV Grow employees effective August 1, 2022.

The lawsuit was filed against the State of Nevada. CSN is a public college overseen by the Nevada Board of Regents.

Raiford complained to then-president Federico Zaragoza and Bill Dial, the human resources director, about the alleged lack of payment. He told Zaragoza that “the payment issue was urgent and required his assistance because it was negatively impacting NV Grow’s workforce, including an employee who could not pay his rent because he had not been paid,” the lawsuit states.

And on August 16, 2022, the lawsuit says, his attorney wrote to Dial “claiming that CSN’s continued refusal to pay NV Grow employees was unlawful” and that he may be compelled to take legal action against the college.

Two days later, the college informed him in an email that he had not been reappointed as director of NV Grow, the lawsuit said.

“Defendant decided not to renew Plaintiff’s employment as a director of NV Grow because Plaintiff complained that Defendant did not pay NV Grow employees a portion of their salary in August 2022,” the lawsuit states, and “effectively fired” Raiford.

CSN spokesman Richard Lake said CSN could not comment on the litigation. Lynda King, an attorney for the Nevada System of Higher Education, the agency run by the Board of Regents, said she had no knowledge of the lawsuit, declined to comment and hung up.

Zaragoza, who recently retired, could not be reached for comment. Dial did not respond to a request for comment. Raiford’s attorney, Michael Arata, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Raiford said Friday that he is about to begin a new academic year as chair of the School of Business Administration.

Launched in 2015, NV Grow is a program designed to help local businesses and is run by CSN’s Workforce and Economic Development Division, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit states that Raiford has been a tenured professor at CSN since 2008. He was ranked third on ratemyprofessors.com’s list of top professors for 2011 and 2012.

Contact Noble Brigham at [email protected]. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.