Flagship Friends

To: LSU faculty, staff and students

From: LSU Chancellor Mike Martin

Date: October 20, 2010

Re: Mid-year budget cut increase

Dear LSU community,

LSU has submitted a revised plan for meeting a new mid-year
budget reduction of $5.1 million, as required by the Division of
Administration.  Below are the details of the cut, which we will also be
sending out in a press release later today.

After submitting plans for a $2.2 million mid-year budget
reduction last week, LSU was notified on Monday that its mid-year cut
has been increased to $5.1 million.  LSU – and other student-serving
institutions within the LSU System – were given higher budget cuts so
that the LSU AgCenter and Pennington Biomedical Research Center could be
spared larger mid-year cuts.

LSU calculations show that, because the cuts for the
AgCenter and Pennington were re-distributed to the remaining
universities within the LSU System, LSU’s mid-year cut went from 1.6
percent to 3.7 percent.  The additional cuts could have been distributed
among all higher education systems in Louisiana, but were not.
To meet the cut, LSU will:

-  Reduce funds in several areas of the LSU School of Veterinary
Medicine, including the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab and the
Arbovirus Testing Program, which provide research, diagnoses or control
of animal-related human diseases such as West Nile virus, encephalitis
and rabies;

-  Change the source of funds for graduate assistant tuition exemptions
on employing  campuses, totaling nearly $1 million;

-  Utilize funds generated by tuition and fees from a
higher-than-expected freshman enrollment this fall, which LSU had
planned to use to temporarily increase classroom support, reduce section
sizes and provide counseling and tutoring hours for students;

-  Change the source of funding for the Academic Center for Student
Athletes from the university to the Athletic Department.

As you know, LSU has already endured $42 million in reductions in state
appropriations since January of 2009.  The new cut brings LSU’s losses
to $47 million in 22 months, an average of more than $2 million per
month.  For more information please visit www.lsu.edu/budget and www.flagshipfriends.org.

It is time for the LSU faithful to band together and fight the proposed budget cuts! Unless your voice is heard, the Governor and the Legislature will not know how important LSU is to you and to our state’s future. Join the Action Network today to make your voice heard.

http://www.lsureveille.com/news/all-english-instructors-receive-notices-1.2361076

The same day English instructor Martha Strohschein learned she was nominated for the department’s teaching award, she also received her second termination letter from Humanities and Social Sciences Dean Gaines Foster.

Strohschein, a senior instructor in the English Department, has taught at the University for 26 years and said her story is all too similar to that of other instructors within the department.

***
From the comments:

With your help, FlagshipFriends.org helped concerned citizens send over 10,000 individual letters to Louisiana’s elected officials in a very short time span. Thanks for supporting your Tigers on the field and in the classroom.

We will continue to keep you updated.

http://www.legis.state.la.us/archive/09RS/veto/HB1v.pdf

Gov. Jindal has signed HB1 (the 2009-2010 budget) with some specific line item vetos for some of the funding tied to reducing the budget cuts for higher education.

The next 48 hours will determine how much of LSU’s budget is restored. We need your help. An e-mail is good, but if you have a moment, call your legislators’ offices to let them know you are concerned about LSU.

Yesterday, the Senate amended 2 bills to help higher education:

1. HB 689 would put $118 million into higher education, with $17 million going to LSU.
2. spHB 802 would tap the Rainy Day fund and place the money in an account to be used over the next three years to ease higher education’s projected budget reductions, or create a “soft landing”. (To learn more, visit BayouBuzz.com)

With just 8 days remaining in the session, these may be the last two bills that can help LSU preserve quality.

The Governor has also committed to making the Flagship Agenda a priority. This is great news. He should “cut the cut” in half, or lower the cut to LSU’s state appropriations from $34 million to $17 million. HB 689 and 802 would accomplish this. If the House and the Governor support these efforts, LSU stands a much better chance of staving off real devastation.

Let’s give one last push for the Tigers.

*******

• CALL THE GOVERNOR: 225.342.7015
• CALL YOUR REP: 225-342-6945

In critical times like these, phone calls to your elected officials are more effective in expressing concern about pending Leglislation. These two bills are being sent to the House and, if passed, to the Governor.

*****

Four former Louisiana governors appealed to Gov. Bobby Jindal to preserve higher education as much as possible. Gov. Jindal committed not to cut state appropriations by more than 10%. Higher education is currently bracing for a 15% cut to state appropriations amounting to $219 million, of which LSU’s share is $32 million. These figures exclude the mid-year budget cut and required costs not anticipated to be picked up by the government.

Gov. Jindal’s Press Conference on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bx3K21UeH4&NR=1

Contact Gov. Jindal and ask he do all he can to protect higher education funding.

http://www.votervoice.net/link/target/tiger34220056.aspx

With less than 15 days remaining in the session, LSU still needs your help to restore its budget.

No firm plan has been established to significantly minimize higher education’s budget cut. LSU is performing very well and we should support that progress. The Flagship University has a 61% graduation rate, conducts $140 million in research, and has a $1.3 billion economic impact to the state.

Please contact your legislators and ask them to do all that they can to minimize the budget cuts to LSU, Louisiana’s Flagship University, and let’s make our leading university truly a LEADING university.

Please send an email to your elected officials stating your support for LSU at http://www.votervoice.net/Groups/TIGER/Advocacy/?IssueID=18333&SiteID=-1

We’d like to thank the following websites/blogs for their mention of Flagship Friends, and helping us reach LSU supporters in a time where we hope everyone’s voice can be heard.

LSU Alumni Association

Dandy Don

La News Link

S.O.S. – Save Our Schools

If you’ve seen a flagshipfriends.org mention anywhere else, please leave that in the comments.