James E. Rogers, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, is steamed over looming budget cuts and what he sees as a lack of support from the state’s governor, the Republican James Gibbons. Mr. Rogers let loose his frustration during a fiery interview on Thursday with the Las Vegas Sun, in which he bashed the state’s tax policy and said the governor was not returning his calls.

Mr. Rogers said he was just “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” as Nevada education sinks for lack of financial support, asserting that further cuts would lead to tuition increases and student defections to other states. “This governor is so inflexible he won’t consider a short-term fix,” Mr. Rogers said. “Without a short-term fix, we’re looking at long-term destruction.”

The voluble Mr. Rogers, a wealthy former business executive, is not one to pull his punches. In January 2007 he resigned over clashes with a member of the system’s Board of Regents. His resignation letter said simply, “I quit.” A day later he was back on the job.

But the drama this time around is being driven by a serious money crisis. The system faces proposed budget cuts of 14 percent, in addition to 4.5 percent in statewide reductions. Among other things, the cuts could lead to the shuttering of a medical school and some intercollegiate sports programs, Mr. Rogers has said.

Governor Gibbons, however, may have other problems on his mind. According to The New York Times, he is embroiled in a divorce “so tawdry, so publicly spectacular, and so potentially grueling” that issues like higher education might pale by comparison. —Paul Fain