LSU Schools to Prepare $100 Million in Cuts

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
By Jan Moller
Capital bureau

LSU schools to prepare $100 million in cuts
System's chief says they may be permanent

BATON ROUGE -- The head of the Louisiana State University System is asking individual campus heads to detail how $100 million in permanent cuts would affect their schools as the state's colleges brace for a bare-bones budget.

In a letter to university chancellors, LSU System President John Lombardi also confirmed that the schools will ask the Legislature for a 5 percent tuition increase this spring to help mitigate the effects of spending cuts caused by the ongoing recession and the state's loss of energy revenue. He said the schools might also look at increasing some fees, though that could prove to be a tougher sell among lawmakers.

The tuition increase was initially approved last year, and requires only a majority vote in each chamber of the Legislature to implement for the 2009-10 academic year. But most fee increases require a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate.

"While it is possible that some relief may be forthcoming from the Legislature, due to the timing we cannot delay development of specific plans to implement the reductions required by the Governor's budget," Lombardi wrote.

Gov. Bobby Jindal is scheduled to make his 2009-10 budget recommendations to the Legislature on Friday. Higher education officials were told late last week that colleges and universities will be asked to absorb a $219 million cut, an amount that would have been twice as high were it not for federal economic stimulus dollars.

The cuts come after several years of growth in state spending on higher education, which brought Louisiana's public colleges and universities up to the level of their regional peers after decades of trailing behind.

Lombardi said the cuts translate to a 15 percent reduction in state support, and a 9 percent cut in "discretionary money," or state dollars and money collected from students.

A spreadsheet accompanying Lombardi's letter says LSU's main campus would be cut by $35 million, while the University of New Orleans is looking at $11 million in reductions. The LSU Health Sciences Center-New Orleans would be cut by $19 million.

The letter asks that individual campuses produce detailed budget plans by April 21, when the higher education budgets are scheduled for their first review by the House Appropriations Committee.

Although many economists predict the country will start to emerge from the current economic downturn next year, Lombardi said campuses should prepare for the cuts to be permanent, since the federal stimulus dollars that are propping up the budget will dry up in two years.
"Even with a substantial recovery of the economy over the next two years, we are likely to need to manage within constrained budgets for some period beyond the current two-year funding of the federal stimulus package," Lombardi wrote.
. . . . . . .
Jan Moller can be reached at jmoller@timespicayune.com or 225.342.5207.