LSU cuts $10.3 million

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jan 7, 2009 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

LSU announced Tuesday a patchwork approach to addressing more than $10.3 million in budget cuts at its main campus in Baton Rouge.

The moves should avoid layoffs and cutting class offerings for now, LSU Chancellor Michael Martin said.

But Martin warned much more substantive changes could be made in the future if the spending reductions that begin next week are made permanent by state government.

“My concern is it’s a harbinger of bigger cuts to be made in the future,” Martin said.

The entire LSU System, which includes campuses in several cities, is responsible for $29 million in cuts.

The Southern University System needs to make more than $4 million in mid-academic year cuts, but the details are still being finalized, spokesman Ed Pratt said.

The state faces a $341 million shortfall in its $30 billion budget for the fiscal year that ends in June because of the national recession and declining state revenue from lower oil prices.

The state’s public colleges and universities initially were told to expect $109 million in cuts this academic year. Instead, Gov. Bobby Jindal recommended $55 million in spending reductions for the state’s universities. He spared the community and technical colleges and LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center from cuts.

So instead of looking at more than $17 million in reductions, LSU’s main campus, for instance, is now dealing with the $10.3 million figure.

“Does that mean it isn’t painful? Of course it’s still painful,” Martin said. “It’s like someone hitting you in the head with a hammer. It feels better when it stops, but you were still getting hit by a hammer.”

Nearly $6.8 million will be saved at LSU just from salary and benefits savings by not filling a multitude of current and upcoming faculty and staff job vacancies, said Bob Kuhn, LSU associate vice chancellor of budget and planning. Kuhn said he does not know exactly how many job vacancies there are at LSU.

“We’ll simply have to sit on them,” Martin said of several job openings, including LSU’s much-hyped Multidisciplinary Hiring Initiative to attract more nationally prominent faculty to LSU.

But such short-term attrition will not affect class sizes or offerings for the upcoming spring semester, Kuhn said.