(AP) — The head of the House budget-writing committee suggested Tuesday that he won’t shield Louisiana’s public colleges and universities from cuts when federal stimulus dollars disappear, criticizing the schools for what he called poor planning and unnecessary spending.Rep. Jim Fannin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the institutions did too little to improve student performance when they received hefty budget increases over the past decade, before three recent rounds of state funding cuts.”Even though we put all those hundreds of millions of dollars into higher ed, we didn’t get a better outcome,” Fannin, D-Jonesboro, told higher education leaders at a budget hearing. He added, “It looks like we created programs when we had those dollars that maybe we shouldn’t have created.”
Lawmakers criticizes colleges over budget cuts, unncessary spending
March 23, 2010