BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A panel charged with making $800 million in cost-cutting suggestions to Gov. Bobby Jindal and state lawmakers refused Tuesday to wade into the politically tricky debate over college board consolidation.
The Commission on Streamlining Government decided it won’t consider Treasurer John Kennedy’s recommendation to abolish the governing boards of the LSU, University of Louisiana and Southern University systems. Kennedy wants all public four-year universities in Louisiana governed by the state Board of Regents without independent oversight boards.
The commission voted 8-1 against debating the consolidation idea. All the members but Kennedy sided with commission chairman, Sen. Jack Donahue, who argued a separate higher education panel was the appropriate place for such a discussion.
Donahue, R-Covington, said his bill to create the streamlining commission excluded higher education from the panel’s review. He said he told lawmakers that decisions about cost-cutting at public colleges would be left to another commission specifically charged with that task.
“It was my agreement with my fellow legislators that higher education would not be part of this (streamlining commission) process,” he said. “To me, it’s a matter of honor.”
Kennedy said the streamlining panel was reviewing government employment levels, state-owned vehicles and other areas that affect the college systems as well as state agencies. He said he didn’t understand why campus governing boards would be excluded from the discussion, and he suggested his recommendation was being scrapped because it was too controversial.
“I have a great deal of respect for the chairman. I just think he’s wrong,” Kennedy said.
The decision against debating college board consolidation came as the streamlining commission began receiving suggestions from its advisory panels.
Jindal and lawmakers created the commission to offer ideas on slashing state government spending amid years of projected budget shortfalls. Donahue said the panel will start meeting weekly and will begin voting on individual recommendations Oct. 27.
The panel must pull together its report by Dec. 15. Lawmakers will consider the proposals in the regular legislative session that begins in March.
Among the ideas suggested so far: cutting the number of state-owned vehicles, requiring prisoners to get a high school equivalency degree before they are eligible for probation or parole, revamping the state’s construction budgeting process, privatizing food services at state prisons and eliminating thousands of state jobs.
Without giving examples, Donahue said he’ll ask the commission to dismiss ideas that stray from financial issues and don’t generate quantifiable savings.
“I am going to try to get rid of things that don’t impact the state heavily,” he said.
 
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