Student Government President J Hudson and Vice President Dani Borel spoke to Gov. Bobby Jindal today after weeks of unanswered contact from him.
Jindal spoke at Abundant Life Church in Denham Springs about economic development and creating jobs, and Hudson and Borel took the opportunity to confront him.
When asked about students’ concerns for their future in higher education, Jindal said universities need to do more for the value the state allocates.
“It’s not acceptable to have that much waste,” Jindal said about Louisiana universities.
Jindal said the state government is not going to reward programs that don’t return in performance.
He stressed the state is not going to raise taxes. He said fiscal year 2011-12 will be the toughest year for the state yet but that revenues look to be getting better.
“They were very quick to spout facts and statistics and not make it relevant to higher education,” Borel said about Jindal’s responses to higher education budget cuts.
Hudson said Jindal needs to make the connection on how creating jobs and economic development is a direct link to funding higher education.
“Everything he talked about was what we’ve done in the past,” Hudson said. “This year is going to seriously define how we handle the future.”
Borel and Hudson didn’t inundate Jindal with questions, as they are meeting with him and Chancellor Michael Martin today at the Governor’s Mansion.
About 60 people, many of them Baton Rouge officials, listened to Jindal talk about the new jobs recently created in the state.
“I promised to you we’d create a new Louisiana,” Jindal said about his inauguration. “We started by waging war on corruption and incompetence.”
Jindal listed five areas where Louisiana has improved under his leadership: ethics, cutting taxes, investing in work force training, improving education and investing in infrastructure.
Jindal listed four bills, including the LA GRAD Act, for improving higher education performance.
He also cited Louisiana as having second-highest dropout rate in the nation.
“That’s not good for those students, not good for the taxpayers,” Jindal said.
Jindal also said the Board of Regents’ funding formula has been too rewarding for universities that are big, not the best.
He said the formula has been revised to reward excellence, not size.
Kyle Plotkin, Jindal’s press secretary, said the University has seen no reduction in total funding since January 2008, which includes $13 million in new LA GRAD Act funding the University receives.
Plotkin said the University’s budget has grown 0.3 percent.
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Contact Catherine Threlkeld at [email protected]