LSU cuts not as deep at research centers

The Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors has voted to approve a $21 million midyear budget cut despite complaints from some students that their tuition dollars are being used to subsidize two research centers.

System President John Lombardi said the final decision Saturday was the result of a complicated process.

“It’s not to anybody’s satisfaction at LSU, but it is the best of a bad situation,” he said.

The cuts were ordered by Gov. Bobby Jindal to shore up a $107 million budget deficit left over from the previous fiscal year, but the LSU board had to sign off on the distribution of the cuts.

While tuition revenue will offset some of the cuts, it also means reductions in everything from faculty travel and supplies to law student scholarships and disease testing at the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Lombardi said the board tried to find a more “equitable distribution” but there was “no escape.”

A long line of students pleaded with the board not to use their tuition money to reduce cuts at the AgCenter and Pennington Biological Research Center, but only board member Alvin Kimble of Baton Rouge agreed with them.

“I’ve wrestled with taking money from students,” Kimble said before the vote. “I’m concerned about what we do next year with a 32 percent cut. Do we penalize all the other schools to help the AgCenter and Pennington? This is all about politics.”

Students said they’re feeling the impact of the budget reductions as faculty is laid off, classes are cut and costs increase. Tuition jumped 10 percent this year with passage of the GRAD Act and a legislatively-approved increase.

“They’re taking my money,” said Khristen Jones, an accounting major from Shreveport. “We’re losing the value of our education” as the university cuts programs and sections of classes that are needed for graduation.

LSU’s original plan for dealing with the cuts called for the campuses to be cut by 1.6 percent, with steeper reductions for the non-academic entities. But the Division of Administration balked, saying the cuts would have been too deep to sustain for Pennington and the Ag Center.

Under the revised plan adopted Saturday, $7.3 million of the cuts originally allocated to Pennington and the Ag Center were redistributed to the other campuses. As a result, the LSU campuses are taking bigger reductions than other academic campuses.