Colleges bracing for $109 million cut in state funds

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Dec 16, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Louisiana colleges likely have to trim $109 million — nearly 8 percent of their state funds — because of higher education budget cuts.

The LSU System is bracing for orders from Gov. Bobby Jindal to slash more than $50 million in the middle of the academic year, while the Southern University System is in line for about $7 million in losses, according to university officials.

LSU System President John Lombardi said layoffs and cuts to academic programs would be inevitable.

“There will be great loss and the loss is mostly in people,” said Lombardi, who noted that expected tuition and fee increases next year can help offset the cuts of what would be $17.6 million for LSU’s main campus in Baton Rouge.

Higher education officials were previously told to prepare for “catastrophic,” worst-case scenario cuts of 30 percent, just in case, for the next academic year. But these are unexpected cuts halfway through the current fiscal year.

“It’s draconian and, at this time of the year, extremely severe,” said Joseph Savoie, president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, which would be cut more than $7.3 million this year.

The projected cuts came just in advance of Monday’s state Revenue Estimating Conference, which projected a $341 million state shortfall for this fiscal year and $2 billion for the 2009-2010 year. The $2 billion estimate is a significant increase from a previously projected $1.3 billion.

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief budget architect and Commissioner of Administration Angèle Davis called the higher education cuts a “framework” of what to anticipate so campuses could adequately prepare.

State Commissioner of Higher Education Sally Clausen said the reality of the recession is setting in statewide.

She said colleges must look to eliminate low-performing and duplicative academic programs, delay construction projects, reduce class offerings, curtail travel and improve energy efficiency. Campuses must make “thoughtful and measured” decisions on cuts, she said.

“We will have to tackle the very difficult job of telling people they may not have jobs next semester,” Clausen said.

The cuts are unfortunate given that the state boosted higher education funding to the regional average less than two years ago, she said.

Savoie referenced the 1980s when “higher education was repeatedly gutted” in Louisiana.