On a scale from zero to 10 — measuring just how worried students, faculty and staff should be about looming budget cuts — Chancellor Michael Martin said the University community should be at a solid 6.5. Martin spent his Wednesday answering student, faculty and staff questions during “Chats with the Chancellor” in Free Speech Plaza and later at the third Chancellor Forum, hosted by the Faculty and Staff Senates, in the Bo Campbell Auditorium of the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes.  If the Legislature approves Gov. Bobby Jindal’s spending budget, the University would have to cut about $50 million from its budget. This includes a $35 million cut for the 2009-10 fiscal year beginning July 1. This is on top of the permanent $10 million mid-year reduction and an additional $5 million in normal “roll-up” costs like health care, Martin said. “A cut that large would be devastating to this institution and its leadership role in higher education in Louisiana and beyond,” Martin told a crowd of more than 500 in the Bo Campbell Auditorium. “And if a cut like that really must be part of our budget, we need authority from those who give us authority to find at least some replacement revenue.” This “replacement revenue,” such as increases in tuition and fees to make up for part of the cuts, would ultimately fall on the backs of students. “It’s more important to do that than to compromise quality,” Martin said. The University is far from making any decisions regarding hikes in fees, layoffs and consolidation or elimination of colleges and departments. Martin said one of the University’s main goals is to persuade the Legislature to lessen the cuts for LSU’s main campus in Baton Rouge. The session starts April 27, and the amount of the final cut won’t be known until it ends. “We still live in a time in which uncertainty prevails,” Martin said to a crowd of about 100 students in Free Speech Plaza. “There’s an awful lot of noise out there about what the budget is or is going to be and how we’re going to cope.”Martin said the University is taking input from and keeping an open dialogue with Student Government, the Faculty and Staff Senates and the University community about the possible budget cuts and their effects. And while Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope’s interests lie with the faculty and Student Government President Colorado Robertson’s interests lie with students, Martin said his responsibilities lie with the general future of the University. “My responsibility is to ask, ‘What’s in the best interest of LSU, long-term, for the people it serves?'” Martin said.Martin said differences in opinion between the University and its leadership groups is an important part of the budget “conversation.” The University filed a proposal to change the System’s rules about furloughs — temporary, unpaid leaves of absence. If a faculty or staff member is furloughed, their salaries would be reduced by the percentage of time they are furloughed, ultimately saving the University money.    The Board of Supervisors currently requires the University to declare financial exigency — an actual or upcoming financial crisis where a university can no longer support its academic units at their current level — before enforcing furloughs, a situation Martin wants to avoid. “What I don’t want to do is make a short-term decision that has long-term, adverse consequences,” Martin said. Martin said the last thing he wants to see happen is faculty layoffs, but declaring financial exigency “opens the door” for future chancellors to use exigency as a way out of tough budget times.  Jonatan Ram, electrical engineering junior who attended “Chats with the Chancellor,” said students need to remind legislators about the importance of LSU’s main campus.”We need to get pissed off,” Ram said. “We need to make sure [legislators] know we’re not going to be happy.”—-Contact Kyle Bove at [email protected]