These days, the news is all about the Benjamins (or lack thereof). The stock market is plummeting/rebounding. The recently-passed economic stimulus package is going to be gutted/stuffed with pork-barrel spending. And the University’s budget is going to be cut/dismantled with a meat ax.That last one really doesn’t have a nice good cop/bad cop dichotomy there — the local budget news just universally sucks.So University administrators are cutting back classes, reducing the number of available sections and trying to find “wasteful” departments for removal. But does this address the problem?The short answer: no.Much like a wounded soldier with gangrene in a limb, the University would need a miracle to come out of this economic crisis exactly as it entered.It’s time for some triage — the practice by which doctors determine who will benefit from medical intervention, who does not need immediate attention and who should be calling a priest instead of a doctor. We need to figure out what cuts will save the most money and do the budgetary equivalent of cutting off a leg.Our current cost-cutting system is simple: cut some classes, reduce the number of sections for others and ban expenditures on travel and other non-essential purchases. The rationale is a few bucks here and a thousand there will eventually add up to big savings. But will it add up to $36 million — the amount required by the state-mandated seven percent budget cut? I’m afraid that’s the equivalent of hoping that the change stuck under all your couch cushions will enable you to buy a new private Gulfstream jet or a fantastic 100 foot yacht. It’s not gonna happen.The obvious places for removal are the big, flashy new “centers” and “institutes” that help fill supposed University needs, given the questionable uses of taxpayer money we saw in the news last summer, including the University’s rehiring of then-first lady Mary Easley at the royal sum of $170,000 — a raise of about 88 percent from her original salary. True, she was supposed to bring “valuable connections” to the University’s pre-law program, but is that really worth doling out $79,700?But as unlikely as it will be for administrators to cut their salaries, what might be a very difficult pill to swallow is this: as far as cutting costs by cutting classes and departments, we should start with engineering and science.Yes, it is pretty much the bread and butter of the University, the bedrock of our reputation. But as the joke goes, the math department is usually cheap — all they need is pencils, paper and wastebaskets. And the philosophy department is even better — they only need pencils and paper! After all, I don’t think many English or political science classes need lab equipment, reagants and safety materials for any of their classes, whereas a number of engineering or science classes require some combination of those things. And unfortunately for the budget, these various materials cost a lot more than paper and pencils.The triage metaphor really does fit here — we need to determine who will benefit from immediate intervention, however unpleasant as that intervention may be. Our University is like any other patient — it doesn’t want to lose its leg, but if it has to choose between dying with two legs and living with one leg, the choice is simple.So why haven’t we made the easy decision?Send your thoughts on the University’s budget cuts to [email protected]