There aren’t many positives that come with cutting $45.1 million of a university’s budget.But some of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s remarks at his news conference Friday were somewhat encouraging.When Jindal officially revealed the state’s budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year, he lobbied for universities to cut their budgets on a performanced-based formula.During the past few weeks, we — probably along with many from this university — stated our cases for implementing the budget cuts on a performanced-based premise.All this means is higher education systems — like the LSU System — would enforce the state-mandated budget cuts based on how certain campuses are performing. Since LSU’s Baton Rouge campus is admittedly the strongest one in the LSU System, its percentage of the cut would be less than other institutions in the system.And that’s the way it should be, even though the LSU System’s budget cut proposal is more heavily focused on a flat-rate cut across the board. In the LSU System’s budget pitch, the cut at LSU Alexandria would be practically the same percentage as the cut on this campus.Now the next step is for the Board of Regents to get on board with the performance-based methodology.That higher education governing body has the ability to sway the LSU System into making the cuts performance based rather than across the board.Like we’ve said previously, just because this campus has the largest budget of all the institutions in the LSU System, that doesn’t mean this campus should take the hardest hit. Performance-based cuts are the fairest way to weather this ugly financial situation. Now it’s the Board of Regents’ turn to make the right decision.——Contact the Editorial Board at [email protected]