Cuts not as severe, but LSU Eunice still feels the pain

By J. Anfenson-Comeau
jamieenews@bellsouth.net

LSU Eunice will be taking an 8.9 percent budget slice for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, slightly more than half what had been planned for, Chancellor William “Bill” Nunez said last week.
“Thank goodness it’s over,” Nunez said. “This has been the most hellacious legislative session I’ve seen in the 13 years I’ve been here.”
Due to eleventh-hour budget negotiations between the state’s House and Senate, $100 million was restored to the state’s higher education budget, which was facing a $219 million cut.
In addition, the legislature approved tuition hikes, which are expected to supply an additional $30 million.
The LSU System is expected to be cut $56.3 million.
What that means for LSUE, Nunez said, is a $771,000 cut, rather than the $1.28 million that was expected.
For Nunez, the cuts are still painful, but not as painful as the budget which had already been prepared without the restored funding.
“Having some recovery here has helped us, in giving us a little flexibility that we wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Nunez said.
Nunez said that five full-time faculty positions will need to be eliminated, rather than 11, and only one staff position, rather than four, will need to be eliminated.
Nunez stressed that these were open positions the college was waiting to fill, not employees.
“These were positions that we secured as a result of turnover, attrition, retirements, in order to lessen the blow,” Nunez said.
The university will look to fill the restored positions.
The school will also merge the Division of Business and Technology with the Division of Nursing and Allied Health, saving on administrative costs.
Operational funds will be cut by 10 percent, rather than 20 percent, and the LeDoux Library, which was facing a 50 percent cut to its acquisitions budget, will now face somewhat less, although Nunez said the exact reduction in the cut was still being determined.
The new budget also restores some money to maintenance, whereas the previous budget had left none.
The school’s travel budget and student labor outside of federal work-study will also be reduced.
Nunez stressed that the cuts, while not as bad as he had been told to expect, are painful, and will affect the quality of education and the ability to retain qualified faculty for years to come.
“We still got run over by a freight train, we still had almost $800,000 taken out of our budget. That’s still a huge chunk of money for us,” Nunez said.