LSU System Proposes Shifting Cuts To Campuses
by JORDAN BLUM - Advocate (excerpt)

The LSU System is proposing shifting parts of possible budget cuts away from the LSU Agricultural Center and Pennington Biomedical Research Center and onto academic campuses, including the flagship Baton Rouge campus. LSU System President John Lombardi wrote in a letter Monday that the change is needed to prevent the AgCenter and Pennington from suffering devastating losses. Under the new proposal, the main LSU campus’ cut would increase from $2.26 million to $5.14 million.

Michael Martin, chancellor of the flagship LSU campus, questioned the legality of the proposal, in terms of cutting the budgets of teaching campuses more than allowed under federal stimulus dollar guidelines. “There’s some very serious question whether it’s legal,” Martin said. “But I’ll let the legal folks figure it out.” While touting the value of entities like the AgCenter, Martin said he has a problem with students being taxed to pay for the LSU System’s non-classroom institutions. “It bothers me,” he said.

Last week, Lombardi said the mid-year budget cuts would have to disproportionately fall on the LSU System’s non-teaching institutions because of federal guidelines. At issue are the “maintenance of effort” requirements on about $290 million in federal stimulus dollars — more than 20 percent of the state’s support for public colleges — that are slated to run out next summer. The “maintenance of effort” requires that funding of teaching institutions can only be cut by so much. The intent is to keep states from using the stimulus dollars as an excuse to make deeper budget cuts to education. He also noted that a special LSU Board of Supervisors meeting is needed to approve the changes. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration has publicly encouraged higher education to focus the cuts on administration and non-teaching institutions, rather than classrooms.