Every university in the LSU System is preparing for a 23-percent budget reduction for the 2011-12 fiscal year.Before its meeting Friday, the Board of Supervisors members listened to each chancellor from the system give a detailed plan of how a budget cut this great would affect that particular university.  “These projections are all the result of our discussion with the legislature,” LSU System President John Lombardi said. “We’re trying to be very clear to ourselves and our constituents about the consequence of the reduction of state revenues.”Of the $133 million deficit for the entire system, $46 million will come from LSU.Chancellor Michael Martin presented his three-level outline of how cuts of such magnitude will directly affect students.Level One reductions, about $9 million, are those indirectly related to the core functions of teaching and research.Level Two reductions, about $16.6 million, are those directly supporting teaching and research but not actively engaged in delivering those core functions.Level Three reductions, about $20 million, are the units delivering core functions of teaching and research.”The cuts we’re suggesting will be felt among our students,” Martin said. “Gone will be writing programs. Gone will be research facilities like CAMD [Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices]. Gone will be the Louisiana Geological Survey, which is vital to the state of Louisiana.”Martin spoke of how the University has grown to top tier status in the past 10 years and is currently listed in U.S. News and World Report’s top 100 universities.”LSU has risen to be a national player, not just on the sports field, but in the labs and classrooms,” Martin said.The budget cuts LSU is planning for will cut from every department on campus.  It is unclear how many faculty members will be terminated, but it will affect all colleges, all departments and will lead to the reduction, consolidation or elimination of programs, according to Martin’s proposed plan.”As a 40-year veteran of higher education, it will be a devastating blow that will not be recovered from in my lifetime or in the lifetimes of our grandchildren,” Martin said.Among the other chancellors who spoke, Paul M. Herbert Law Center Chancellor Jack Weiss reported as the only university with a surplus after the 23-percent budget reduction.”We are ranked in the top 100 U.S. News and World Report. It has a tremendous impact on recruitment of students and faculty,” Weiss said.With enrollment above the average and only 30 percent of the budget relying on state funds, Weiss said he can’t “overemphasize the success that we’ve enjoyed.”Even so, he said cuts to the Law Center would have “an adverse impact on a variety of outreach and reputational initiatives,” according to his letter to the Board.Agriculture Center Chancellor William Richardson spoke of the difficulties he will face because the Ag Center has no students and therefore no increased tuition.”What we do is in research and extension,” Richardson said. “We will eliminate 184 positions. That will devastate many of our research programs.”Lombardi spoke about budget difficulties in states across the country, but how none are as restrained as Louisiana in increasing tuition.”Almost every other state which we compete with in any way has had much higher funding over a long period of time,” Lombardi said.Although no cuts have been made, the plans were created to approach budget cuts in a smart way and to give employees termination notification far in advance.”This is gruesome. It is painful. It is extraordinarily serious,” Lombardi said. “There is nothing here that is easy, nothing that is good.”
 
 
 
—-Contact Catherine Threlkeld at [email protected]