The 16-member LSU Board of Supervisors, charged with managing and overseeing the LSU System, possesses no constitutional power to mitigate the higher education budget cuts proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal.
But LSU President F. King Alexander is banking on Board members to exert their political clout to minimize the adverse effects of cuts to the system’s roughly $475 million spending plan.
Alexander said he and five Board members contacted Jindal after he briefed the supervisors in January on the dire financial situations.
“Five of our very influential board members and I went to see the governor to talk about the dire straits of this potential hit, and what can we do to mitigate it and how can we work together to make sure that we’re not funding the wrong things,” Alexander said. “And this state spends a lot of money on funding the wrong things.”
Current and past Board members outlined wide-ranging effects of spending reduction, including faculty reductions, furloughs, a diminished student experience, building maintenance issues and increased TOPS spending resulting from tuition and student fee increases. While current supervisors expressed hope that issues will be resolved, former supervisors were less optimistic.
Previous Cuts
Former board member Alvin Kimble, who chaired the Finance Committee during similar cuts to higher education, called the situation a catch-22. Kimble represented the 6th congressional district from July 2006 until June 2012.
“The problem is all you can spend is what the state gives and what the tuition brings in,” Kimble said. “And so when they cut your budget, all you can do is look to cut employees, cut services.”
The Daily Reveille previously reported, according to Jane Cassidy, vice provost for human resources and facilities management, the University’s operating budget comprises 85 percent personnel and 15 percent equipment expenses.
“We’ve had so many budget cuts over the past five years that all the low-hanging fruit is already gone,” Cassidy said. “Right now, we’re in a place where we can provide the type of education that we want to provide our students. There’s not much left before we start cutting into that.”
As a businessman, Kimble said he never laid off an employee for lack of funds, but as a Board member, giving furloughs and notice of potential furloughs was commonplace.
In 2009, under then-Chancellor Michael Martin, the University rescinded a plan to furlough 1,700 workers.
However, Kimble said the consequences of budget issues go beyond terminating employees.
“We’ve got so much just, deferred maintenance on buildings and infrastructure and stuff that it’s just frightening the way that the buildings at LSU are deteriorating,” Kimble said. “You just can’t maintain them.”
Because of TOPS, Kimble said the legislature ends up paying any student fee increases. Whenever there is an increase in tuition, the legislature puts more money into TOPS funding.
Kimble said several rounds of budget cuts are responsible for the University’s condition and other state systems. One such cut includes a 54.3 percent state funds per student decrease between fiscal year 2008-2009 to 2014-2015.
“You just meet yourself coming back,” Kimble said. “So LSU really went from being on its way up to really just kind of treading water right now.”
Once Jindal’s proposed budget bill becomes a reality, the Board will have a more defined role.
As the governing body, it must authorize all major fiscal decisions within the system, said Board Chair Ann Duplessis, District 2 state senator from 2002-2010.
The Board will allocate state funding and find ways to close budget shortfalls, but have not expressed concrete plans.
Opposing views
Some former members are critical of the Board’s less than proactive approach.
Former Board member Tony Falterman said members are afraid of the repercussions that could come from opposing Jindal’s office.
“Whatever the governor wants, they’re going to rubber stamp,” Falterman said. “They’re scared to death of him.”
All members were appointed or re-appointed by Gov. Jindal.
Falterman made similar claims when the Board terminated former chancellor John Lombardi in April 2012.
Falterman, who first attended Nicholls State University and later transferred to the University, said the cuts will be tough to overcome for the flagship campus, but almost impossible for the smaller universities and colleges also under the Board’s charge, such as LSU-Eunice or LSU-Alexandria.
“I couldn’t afford to live on campus or afford LSU, and that was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Faltermansaid, “That I could, right there at my back door, go to school get a good education.”
Smaller LSU system campuses continue to turn out prominent doctors and lawyers, Falterman said, but will be hit with the brunt of a fiscal shortfall.
“The other schools, small schools like that, they can’t survive,” Falterman said. “They’re not going to be able to survive the budget cuts. There’s no way.”
Despite faculty, student and administrator’s anxiety over future cuts, current Board members remain optimistic.
The University is looking at a maximum of a 42 to 45 percent reduction.
Board member Blake Chatelain, a University alumnus, has two sonsenrolled at the University and two who have graduated.
“I think the entire Board is very engaged in having conversations with our community and our elected officials about the challenges ahead,” Chatelain said, “And stressing how we need to work through these minimal cuts, if any, to higher ed.”
Board member Stanley Jacobs, also a University alumnus, said as a parent and grandfather, he would feel comfortable sending his grandchildren to the University even as it faces this potentially “devastating” situation.
Jacobs said the Board could be doing more as it waits for the governor’s announcement.
“We’re just waiting to see what is going to happen, what is going to be presented to the legislature and presumably at that time, we’re going to hopefully become proactive,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs, appointed to the Board by Governors Mike Foster, Kathleen Blanco and Jindal, said tuition hikes are becoming more difficult for students.
“I’m in my 15th year, and when I first went on the Board, the state was paying 75 percent of the funding for the tuition and the student was paying 25,” Jacobs said. “Now it’s completely changed. Where now the student is paying is 75 and the state is paying 25. That’s difficult for the students.”
Waiting for the Call
Until the announcement, Duplessis said the Board can do little more than speculate, but she assured students and community members in a statement that the Board was not sitting idly by.
Duplessis said Alexander and the leadership team has been in constant contact with the Board as well as other university systems throughout the state.
Given the “volatile and delicate” nature of the situation, Duplessis said it would be detrimental to make a statement on plans before all the facts are in, namely the official magnitude of the proposed cuts.
“It’s best sometimes to work through these things in a very, especially the delicate issues,” Duplessis said, “to work through them so that once you expose what the options and opportunities are to resolve the issues then you don’t have to go back because something new popped up.”
His email also said the Board is hopeful new options to fund higher education will come out of the next legislative session.
“Our leadership continues to work toward achieving more autonomy from the state to conduct our business while of course being held accountable for quality and outcomes,” Yarborough’s email read. “Our leadership continues to work with the legislature in discussions about the importance of funding higher education at proper levels.”
Board members Scott Angelle and Rolfe McCollister declined to comment, while other Board members did not respond to requests for comment at the time of press.