With the 2008 State Legislative regular session coming to a close next week, the University still faces a 5 percent funding cut from Louisiana’s 2008-09 fiscal budget.
House Bill 1, the state’s annual fiscal budget, is waiting for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee.
The current version of the budget will give the University $232,882,331, a decrease from the $242,709,471 the state provided for the University this past fiscal year.
In the original version of the bill, the University was scheduled to receive $233,950,838. After amendments, the House reduced it by about $1.06 million.
In an April 10 letter to Rep. Eddie Lambert, chairman of the House Appropriations Education Subcommittee, LSU System President John Lombardi said cutting the System’s proposed budget by 5 percent would freeze the University’s Flagship Agenda.
“To replace these funds, the A&M campus would require a tuition increase of about 12 percent or about $270 per student per semester,” Lombardi said in the letter.
He said more than 75 percent of the University’s budget goes toward personnel costs. If the budget cuts are approved, Lombardi said it will damage the recruitment and retention of faculty.
Throughout the legislative process, the bill has not seen any challenge by legislators.
House Bill 1 first entered the House Appropriations Committee on May 11 and was unanimously passed, 22-0. Four days later, the House floor voted on the budget, and all 102 members present voted in favor of the bill.
The budget cuts come almost a year after the state provided the University with an additional $34.5 million from the 2006-07 state fiscal budget.
Lombardi told The Daily Reveille on June 6 that it is critical for the University to maintain its quality.
“We’re still hopeful that those reductions [will be restored in the Senate], which don’t seem to us to make a lot of sense given a state that has all the money it has at the moment that seems to be able to do a lot of things,” Lombardi said.
—-Contact J.J. Alcantara at [email protected]