Gloom filled the Board room when each chancellor of the 11 LSU System’s institutions proposed a campus-by-campus budget reduction plan at the Board of Supervisors’ meeting Thursday.The University will face a reduction of $32,272,323 in state general funding — $2.5 million less than Gov. Jindal’s original proposal.Chancellor Michael Martin said he plans to protect the University’s academic core, flagship status and as many campus jobs as possible.”Moving back the flagship is a cost we cannot afford,” Martin said.Martin said the budget cuts will lead to reduced support for programs including the LSU Museum of Art, Rural Life Museum and some research projects.”We will have to reduce the services we provide,” Martin said. “And we will have to cope with that.”Martin said the University attracts the very best students in the state, and he thinks the state has a contract with those students to provide them with the education they’ve earned.”I do not believe we can advance the economy of this state without a very strong, vital and growing higher education system,” he said. “I am concerned that the budget, as we see it today, will not only affect the Flagship, but through the ripples, it will affect the higher education system across the state.”The LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center will face similar cuts with programs and personnel but will also be forced to discontinue the law magazine and cut down the law library’s hours of operation.”The plane will continue to fly,” said Law Center Chancellor Jack Weiss. “We’re going to take off and fly as far as we can, but it will be a different airline in a lot of ways.”System President John Lombardi said the budget crisis is projected to be a two- to three-year battle.”This is unusual,” Lombardi said. “We have two years that are awful and a third year that is worse. This is a very serious and dramatic rescaling of higher education and clearly damaging to the future of our state.”E. J. Ourso College of Business Dean Eli Jones proposed a financing model for the new College of Business building. He asked the Board to consider his summary and approve the plan at a later date.The building and furnishing would cost no more than $60 million — a sum he plans to achieve by raising up to $30 million, which the state will then match. The Board must approve his financing plan before the state will match the funds.”My team and I are out there everyday knocking on doors and asking for a financial contribution,” Jones said. “If we let this opportunity pass, we will walk away from our opportunity to build this complex.”Jones said the $30 million state match will not be available after June 30, unless he asks for another extension. “There’s a $30 million state match that is waiting on us to build a flagship business school, and every day that passes, we know that the $30 million state match is at risk,” he said.—-Contact Leslie Presnall at [email protected]