Budget riles campuses
by JORDAN BLUM - Advocate (excerpt)

The LSU Board of Supervisors moved forward Friday with a preliminary budget for next year, despite the LSU System feuding with the flagship LSU campus and LSU’s Law Center over dollars.

The source of the dispute is roughly $42 million in the Higher Education Initiative Fund that some campuses feel represents their self-generated tuition revenues being rolled over into the 2011-2012 school year.

But the LSU System is distributing those dollars in a way that keeps the LSU medical schools in New Orleans and Shreveport from suffering budget cuts. While there was no public debate during the board meeting, LSU System President John Lombardi insisted afterward that the dollars are state funds and that the campuses would get all of their new tuition dollars for the upcoming fiscal year that starts July 1.