LSU updating budget plans

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jul 9, 2009 - Page: 12A

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The LSU System is releasing its revised budget reduction and layoff plans today now that the final budget reductions are in.

LSU Chancellor Michael Martin said Wednesday that the flagship LSU campus is proposing staff furloughs and close to 100 layoffs of staff and non-tenure track faculty.

Ancillary units such as the LSU museums, LSU Press and Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices also will be cut — significantly in some cases — as they evolve into more self-sustaining entities, Martin said.

“Our objective was to protect the academic core and the student experience,” Martin said.

The main LSU campus employs nearly 3,300 people.

The LSU System is facing $56 million in cuts, which is reduced to about $52 million when extra line-item appropriations are factored in, such as $2 million to the LSU Agricultural Center.

The main LSU campus in Baton Rouge is coping with a nearly $20 million cut, about a 9 percent decrease in state funds.

The final cuts are nearly 45 percent less than the original $219 million in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposed reductions to all of higher education statewide stemming from reduced state revenue.

The budget slices do not factor in $55 million already cut from higher education in January.
State funding for public colleges was more than $1.4 billion and stands at about $1.3 billion.

The LSU System’s total budget to start the academic year was $1.58 billion, but the state share was $690 million.

Jindal, the House and the Senate worked out a last-minute compromise finalized June 25 to limit the cuts so colleges could downsize more slowly in anticipation of additional budget reductions at least through 2012 because of declining state revenue.

“It’s not as bad as it could have been,” Martin said. “It’s still going to be painful.”

LSU System Vice President for Communication Charles Zewe said the system is sending all of the LSU campuses’ budget plans to the LSU Board of Supervisors today, then publicly releasing the plans.