LSU System President John Lombardi and University Chancellor Michael Martin haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye lately.Lombardi wants to cut the LSU System’s budget by 30 percent across the board, meaning each institution in the System has to cut their budget by the same percentage.But Martin wants the System to go further and cut institutions’ budgets based on their performance. We side with Martin’s idea.The simple truth is this campus is the leader of the System. Just because this University has the largest budget doesn’t mean it should suffer the most. There’s no reason this campus should have to cut as much as other smaller campuses like LSU-Alexandria and LSU-Eunice.We apologize to the little guys, but there’s no other way to paint it.Lombardi tried to work a little bit of the performance-based idea into his proposal by creating the System Performance Support Fund. That fund will be $1.7 million and would be composed of 1 percent of state funds from each institution.Someone please explain to us how $1.7 million will help anyone, specifically this campus, which had a $451 million operating budget for 2008-2009. We don’t understand Lombardi’s rationale here.Like Martin told Lombardi in an e-mail, this is the state’s only flagship university and the state’s only tier-one university.The performance-based cut is more fair to the University. This campus has improved its academic standing and its financial backing in the past 10 years. An across-the-board cut will cripple this campus and undo the progress it has made.The Flagship Agenda will be gone. The top-tier ranking will be history. And huge lecture classes and fewer course offerings will be the norm.Lombardi needs to re-think his plan and listen more closely to Martin and administrators on this campus.Lombardi was brought here to further the System’s and — more specifically — this University’s growth and development.  But his proposal doesn’t make any sense. And we don’t like it.Lombardi must work harder to make this performance-based idea work. He came here as a fighter and an innovator — someone who had high hopes for this institution.Make it happen, John.- – – -Contact the Editorial Board at [email protected]