The fecal matter is poised to strike the Westinghouse oscillating air manipulation device (the crap is about to hit the fan) and the citizens of Louisiana have no one to blame but Bobby Jindal (sorry, but I still can’t bring myself to call him governor) and the brain-dead legislators who, like so many sheep, for eight years obediently allowed him to lead the state off the fiscal cliff into the abyss.
In an LouisianaVoice exclusive, we have received a copy of a two-page letter from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) which, by comparison, is to Gov. John Bel Edwards’ warning Thursday as Black Sabbath is to Pat Boone. SACSCOC LETTER
The letter, dated Feb. 11 (Thursday) was addressed to Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne with copies to Edwards, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Eric LaFleur, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Cameron Henry, Louisiana Commissioner of Higher Education Joseph C. Rallo, Ph.D., the Louisiana institutional members of SACSCOC, and SACSCOC Board of Trustees Chairman Mark E. Keenum, Ph.D.
At least one source told LouisianaVoice that Edwards possessed the letter at the time of his televised statewide address on Thursday but chose to attempt to soften the impact of the letter’s contents as much as possible while still sending a clear message to the legislature and the citizens of Louisiana.
SACSCOC is the regional accrediting body for 800 public, private and for-profit institutions of higher education in 11 southern states, including Louisiana. It is one of seven regional accrediting bodies recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to assure quality in higher education and to serve as the gatekeeper to federal financial aid (Title IV) for students in the region (emphasis ours). http://www.sacscoc.org/
The letter was signed by SACSCOC President Belle S. Wheelan, Ph.D.
“SACSCOC has become aware of the fact that because of the lack of financial resources from the state, the institutions the commission accredits may have to cease operation prior to the end of the current semester,” she wrote. “This would mean (1) students would not be able to complete classes and, subsequently, earn no credit for courses taken this semester, potentially impacting their financial and eligibility, and (2) payroll will not be met and bills would not be paid placing employees in an untenable financial situation as well as negatively impacting the credit ratings of the institutions.”
She said federal regulations dictate that any institution suspending operations or closure in the next several months must provide SACSCOC with a plan for how students can continue at another college or university. The commission, she said, would have to approve such a plan and could send students to another state. “This would create a tremendous hardship on students who might be unable to get a job because the completion of their degree is needed or, worst case scenario, they might drop out of college all together (sic).”
She said if the schools are unable to demonstrate continued financial stability or continue to enroll students, “the board of SACSCOC would have to consider a public sanction of the institutions or a withdrawal of their accreditation. Public sanctions have a chilling effect on the enrollment of potential students and withdrawal of accreditation results in the loss of federal financial aid.”
Wheelan served as president of two institutions and as Secretary of Education for the State of Virginia. As such, she said, “I am painfully aware of the difficulty state leadership has in making budgetary decisions but the lack of state funding is putting Louisiana colleges and universities in serious risk and placing students’ academic careers in jeopardy. I know the challenges are many but I believe it is important for you to know the impact your decisions will have before you finalize your plans.”
Here is the response to the letter which Gov. Edwards gave LouisianaVoice on Friday:
“The previous administration’s choice to make the largest disinvestment in higher education in the nation over the past seven years was a choice that would inevitably lead to devastating results. It is time to turn that around. If the legislature chooses to raise no new revenue in the special session starting Sunday, universities and colleges across our state together will face more than $200 million in cuts this fiscal year—and will have to implement those cuts over the next four months. Even if the legislature chooses to raise the revenue I am proposing, higher education still faces $42 million in cuts and a $28 million TOPS funding shortage this year. This is unsustainable. I am working with our legislature to develop solutions to stabilize Louisiana’s budget this year and going forward. These responsible steps can only help us maintain accreditation for our higher education institutions, as our students deserve.”
Edwards, in his address Thursday, said that the TOPS scholarship program had suspended payments because of the state’s pending $870 million budget deficit and the looming $2 billion budget hole facing legislators for the next fiscal year which begins on July 1.
In order to awaken anyone who might have been dozing off or who were ticked off for missing Family Feud or Wheel of Fortune (one Baton Rouge TV station opted for Wheel instead of carrying the governor’s speech, choosing instead to stream the speech on its Web site), Edwards also threw in the biggest threat of all: the possible necessity of (gasp!) cancelling collegiate football in 2016.
Well, if losing TOPS didn’t do the trick, you can bet your school jersey that got the attention of Louisiana’s masses. I mean, how could we possibly survive without watching a bunch of oversized, tutored adolescents strut around on the field after pile-driving an opposing quarterback head first into the turf at Tiger Stadium to the delight of 100,000 screaming maniacs?
Why, it would be downright unamurican!
Sure enough, Internet news pages predictably latched onto the football hook in covering Louisiana’s fiscal implosion. http://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/golf/lsu-football-in-danger/vp-BBpqNEV
At least we now know what’s really important in this state (like we didn’t before?). Certainly it’s not the deplorable condition of the academic buildings falling down around LSU students that Bob Mann has been documenting in recent weeks on his outstanding blog post Something Like the Truth. http://bobmannblog.com/2016/01/24/sinking-flagship-a-new-look-at-lsus-middleton-library/
The disgraceful windows of LSU’s Hatcher and Johnston halls
LSU library’s decay is symbolic of Louisiana’s misplaced priorities
Mired in mediocrity, has Louisiana higher education lost the battle?
But hey, who ever paid admission to watch a physics professor teach—other than students faced with ever-rising tuition costs?
And just how is all this legislators’ and Bobby Jindal’s fault?
The explosion of corporate tax breaks that were handed out during his administration, for openers.
And there is the excellent series on corporate tax breaks published by the Baton Rouge Advocate: http://blogs.theadvocate.com/specialreports/
Along with the handouts to his corporate friends and supporters, Jindal also cut higher education more than any other state, another issue covered in depth albeit somewhat belatedly by The Advocate. State support to colleges and universities was cut by 55 percent during Jindal’s eight years with cuts having to be made up by painful tuition increases.
http://blueprintlouisiana.org/index.cfm/newsroom/detail/618
LSU President F. King (I would absolutely change my name—or drop the initial) Alexander fired the first real warning shot across the legislature’s bow last April with he revealed he had already drawn up plans for financial exigency (bankruptcy) as yet another higher education budget cut loomed.
It worked, in a fashion. The legislature responded by passing a phantom tuition increase offset by a phantom tax credit which was supposed to fix the problem (who bought into that?), but only after consulting with the god of No New Taxes, Grover Norquist. Norquist has never held public office but yet he mysteriously controls the puppet strings of legislators and congressmen as if holding the sword of Damocles over their collective heads with his idiotic “No New Taxes” pledge. Did the Republicans learn anything from George H.W. Bush’s infamous “Read my lips: no new taxes” promise in his 1988 nomination acceptance speech? Apparently not.
And therein lies the real problem. Why in hell did our legislators, led by a delusional man who would be president if only he could break the 1 percent barrier in the Iowa polls, answer to someone like Norquist and not the citizens of this state? That question needs to be addressed repeatedly to every legislator who went along with that shell game last year. “Mr. Legislator: why did you acquiesce to Grover Norquist like some pathetic, starving little puppy begging for table scraps?”
“For years, Louisiana’s colleges have stabilized funding with tuition and fee increases to offset declining direct support from the state,” said Public Affairs Research Council (PAR) President Robert Travis Scott when shown the letter by LouisianaVoice. “But we’ve reached the limits of those tactical maneuvers. Now we need a strategy to provide long-term financial stability for higher education while also getting a streamlined and accountable educational product in return,” he said.
State Rep. J. Rogers Pope (R-Denham Springs), a member of the House Education Committee, said the letter “makes you want to throw up.” He said the message in the letter is “devastating to all parents and students as well as our colleges. I don’t see that the legislative body will permit that to happen.”
Pope, a former school principal and retired Superintendent of Livingston Parish Schools, said he hoped that the legislature and Edwards can “forget partisan politics and work together to get us out of this deep hole dug by the previous administration. Losing accreditation is a major blow to the state’s financial and workforce capabilities.”
Another source said the situation “is dire” and that was why football was mentioned by Edwards in Thursday’s address. “If we lose accreditation, it’s all over regardless of how much money TAF (the Tiger Athletic Foundation, which helps support LSU athletics) has.”
The source, who asked not to be identified said, “This is the beginning of the multi-institutional collapse of historic proportions I’ve been predicting for years.”
As I have said here before, if you, the citizens of this state, choose to sit idly by and not question the actions, motives and obligations of legislators to lobbyists and corporate contributors, then you have become as much of the problem as Jindal and the legislators.
It’s up to you to hold your elected official accountable. If you don’t, if you can’t pull yourself away from football or Wheel of Fortune or Bachelor long enough to learn what your elected officials are doing, then stop whining.
Yeah, Edwards is doing exactly what he said he WOULDN’T do because “he’s married to a teacher”. Just another lying, cheating SOB.
Edwards didn’t write that letter and Edwards didn’t cut college budgets to the bones, thus creating this situation. Edwards didn’t create a $2 billion deficit. Yesterday (Feb. 11) was his first month anniversary in office. He’s not perfect, but he inherited a horrible mess that he must now try to fix. Give him a chance, for god’s sake.
Tom, no need to bother replying to those of that ilk. As was said in the movie, “You can’t fix stupid”.
Perhaps if the splineless university system presidents would stop fawning over the governor and legislature (whoever they are) each time they cut the higher ed budget that would help.
Touché.
I assume Edwards was in the legislature before becoming Governor. If so what was his voting record on higher education issues?
He was indeed a state representative prior to becoming governor and his record is one of consistently opposing cuts to higher education funding as well as opposing Jindal’s corporate giveaways.
How can someone not know this at this point?
Excellent piece and excellent comments.
To hell with both football and the TOPs program. Emphasis should be placed on the possible loss of the New Opportunities Wavier program (NOW), which provides funding to assist with the care and medical needs of our disabled population. That’s where our focus should be. Governor Edwards began his address with focus on the NOW program, I believe citing the circumstances of a young man I believe named “Brady”.
Some of the individuals in the waiver program will suffer greatly should funding for the services they receive cease to exist. This is a quality of life and more importantly a “life or death” situation versus someone missing a credit of college or not being able to tailgate at a football game.
Please Sir, additional information on the loss of this critical program would be appreciated in Louisiana Voice.
Great piece, I am still bewildered by the absolute pig headedness of some people who refuse to believe the seriousness of our situation. I also did not appreciate John Kennedy’s stump speech.
This notion that we can just cut our way out of this, spread by AFP and the Louisiana Republican Party, and specifically the House Republicans, is baloney. If we could have done that, I think Bobby Jindal would have.
And that was JBE’s most compelling point in his TV spot. He should have hammered it home more as many of us have attempted to do. The truth is out there, but too many turn a blind eye.
Good point, dp. The republicans had the majority the last four years. But, the delegation had factions. They all were not on the same page.
Stephanie Grace nails it, as usual, and makes a better argument for JBE’s case than he did:
http://theadvocate.com/news/legislature/14856910-171/stephanie-grace-edwards-not-trying-to-scare-people-sure-looks-like-it
Is it too late to tar and feather the little weasel and send him out on a rail??
Add some of those compliant leges to that list as well!
Maybe so but it would make me feel better….
My state elected representatives will soon receive my letter telling them that I will not suffer another word about Planned Parenthood, repealing Obamacare, gay marriage, building walls and deporting immigrants or any other nonsense that does not solve the financial problems of Louisiana. I will ask for updates on the progress.
Sorry for the typos. Small keyboard and anger messes with my fingers.
I corrected the typos but your message came through loud and clear in its original form! lol!
Lots of luck.
What an excellent summary. Excellent. I will write my legislators saying exactly what Hunycat has proposed. And while I’m at it, I will send the same message to our political pandering AG.
“As I have said here before, if you, the citizens of this state, choose to sit idly by and not question the actions, motives and obligations of legislators to lobbyists and contributors, then you have become as much of the problem as Jindal and the legislators.
It’s up to you to hold your elected official accountable.”
Exactly. This is precisely the same problem on the federal level, and the message Bernie Sanders has been trying to get the public to understand. Congress represents big donors, because that’s the way they get money to run for office the next time.
State legislators don’t dare withdraw tax breaks for oil, gas, or chemical industries, because those interests will run ads against them in the next election. Unless constituents let legislators know how they feel about funding education and healthcare, this system will continue and those officials won’t worry about not solving the problem.
[…] UPDATE 2/12/16: It happened here, or at least we got our version of The Warning Letter I warned about below. h/t Louisiana Voice […]
Sadly the wakeup call has been totally wasted on the average LA citizen. Our state is doomed and even when the worst happens you can count on them to blame the party they are not affiliated with.
Maybe it is best for our state to suffer a catastrophic failure. Anything less and both parties will just spin it.
I am sick of BOTH parties.
Reblogged this on tmabaker.
[…] Source: Sorry Jindal legacy lives on in threat to accreditation of Louisiana colleges and universities for l… […]
I think it’s hilarious how Kennedy was lifted up as the voice of reason until he started talking about common sense cuts. You can’t tell me that they can’t find a billion dollars in a $24B budget that isn’t related to higher education. There is waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere. Tom writes about it weekly. The dental board has supposedly spent $500k on the defense of people that should never qualify for state funding. In August board minutes they bragged about saving money since they were officially sued and the state can now absorb the legal cost. Let’s start by having these boards send all their revenue into the general fund and make them justify getting it back. Let’s make them pay their own way when the law has been broken or they are guilty of malfeasance in office.
Stephen Winham – perhaps no one listens because of special interests going back 100 years. A great, long-standing Louisiana political entitlement. It must stop. John Kennedy lost my respect and vote when he declared for Vitter’s job and immediately began to mouth the same, old tired, failed junk.
I’m right there with you.
AMEN, Fairness!!!! Kennedy references copying a Houston hospital to rein in Medicaid costs. Regarding your last two sentences, just listen to how Mississippi handles renegade boards and commissions (you HAVE to hear this to believe it!!!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9AF2X224Wo#action=share.
So it sounds like we’ve got smarter folk to our immediate west and to our immediate east (TX & MS). No doubt they’re laughing to high heaven about Louisiana’s ineptitude!
Former Democrat John Kennedy could have taken the high road by offering solutions that were not bogus and that would be acceptable by all parties. Instead, he played the same old tired proposals as if they offered anything different than they did years or even decades ago.
Exactly. My favorite malapropism: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think.
Experts advise the legislature and governor daily, providing the best information available. Study after study recommend the same things. Why does nobody in a position to change things listen?
Why trash football in this piece? They are totally self sufficient at LSU and actually give money to Academics pursuits at LSU. But still, this article has to perpetuate the myth that all involved in football are neanderthals. They also don’t mention that 27 dollar a barrel out has a little something to do with this mess.
I wasn’t trashing football. I started my career as a sports editor and covered Terry Bradshaw’s collegiate career and I traveled with the Grambling football team while covering them. I love the sport but if you go back and read my post you will understand my criticism was not of football but of people who put football (and other sports) above academics. You simply validated my point which was that no one pays attention to the state’s finances or to the deplorable condition of college and university classroom buildings and libraries. But just let collegiate sports be threatened….
Another point: you say LSU football pays its own way. That’s true. But not a single one of the other college football programs in Louisiana does so. Accordingly, the budget cuts must necessarily adversely affect those programs.
LSU academics would be self-sufficient too if they were allowed to charge the tuition the market would bear in the same way LSU football charges what they want for tickets on Saturday nights. Louisianians are loath to allow that, or to funnel more tax dollars into LSU, for good reason, however. They see that LSU is badly run. They get rid of the best faculty, like Ivor von Heerden when they speak truth to power about the levees and Katrina, then waste millions getting sued for it, and lose. They fire faculty for silly, petty reasons, like using a curse word during lecture, get sued by a national speech rights group, and will waste millions losing that one too. They hire profs for six-figure salaries who have totally fraudulent publication records, like Mustapha Marrouchi, who subsequently went to UNLV, which quickly figured him out and got rid of him. Why give incompetent LSU managers even more tax dollars to waste on that sort of nonsense? At least with football the results of our investment are clear and thoroughly reported in the newspapers. We can see what we get for the investment and make rational decisions about it. On the academic side of things, though, we just pour in more money, the results are rarely discussed in the newspapers, certainly not to the degree football is, and we have to wonder why would we want to invest more.
No, Jethro, I have never worked for LSU. But I am a 1972 alumna. Even 40 some-odd years ago (where did four decades go, anyway?) football players were like little gods and all athletes were, as you said, athletes first. With gobs of money spent on their needs and wants, dollars actually taken from academics on occasion, plus the behavior I witnessed in tiger stadium and the general attitude of football as religion, I wrote it all off and declined to contribute to the alumni association. I was raised on athletics and was an athlete myself back in the day. I’ve been all about academics since about 1970.
In 1972, there was not nearly the money in college football as now, Earth. In inflation corrected dollars, a head coach made about 10% of what he makes now. I know that does not alter your point; I just find it interesting. Many more Louisianians will always know who William Abb Cannon is than Robert Penn Warren. To my mind, excellence at any pursuit is always great.
The issue here is not that LSU’s football program is a financial success and needs little university support. The simple fact is, that the athletes are first and foremost, students. If there is no academic program, there are no athletics. The football program cannot exist independent of the academic side – no university=no students=no athletics.
Unless of course, a professional football team is formed. Oh yeah, Louisiana already has one of those.
Also, the oil price issue began late last year – the budget deficits started with jindal’s stay in the mansion.
You must not work at LSU, earthmom. If you did you would understand that there the athletes are first and foremost athletes. LSU football is so profitable because it pays no taxes, gets rent-free use of state owned land and buildings, and does not pay most of its workers. If it had to do any of those things, like a real business, it would not be so financially successful. Let’s be thankful it is because it’s the only part of LSU that does not have its prices fixed by the hypocritical leges. If LSU could charge the tuition people were willing to pay, its academic operations would also be highly profitable. Yes, even if the leges capped TOPS.
Great article. It brings to mind two descriptive phrases from the Sixties.
“Telling it like it is!”
“Rap on Brother…….Rap on!”
There is a web site on my facebook page that shows to what extent football programs are self sufficient. La. Tech’s football program is “substantially subsidized”. You can click on it and find out about any division 1 program in any state.
I went to that scorecard when I was researching the claim that we pump too much into our football programs and wrote about it on my blog. https://lahigheredconfessions.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/la-higher-ed-is-not-the-problem-athletics-edition/ While I don’t dispute that overall the money spent on college athletics is a problem nationally, when you look at it in real dollars outside of self-supporting LSU, our state is a non-player in the “athletic arms race.” and a very small percentage of revenues/fees are going to sports when compared to the entire state budget. We pay far more out in film industry tax breaks than we do collegiate sports–and outside of a few superstars much of what is spent on sports also include scholarships for athletes who are also real students–particularly at mid-majors and smaller institutions. I fail to see that type of benefit when we give tax breaks to Hollywood studios that mostly flow out of state.
Back to the issue at hand, regional accreditation is a very, very, VERY big deal. If Louisiana institutions begin losing their regional accreditation, their students will NOT be eligible for federal financial aid, on top of potentially losing TOPS. This is an event horizon (I use that term on purpose) we do NOT want to cross. And SACSCOC has been watching what’s going on with us for YEARS – Dr. Belle Wheelan was even on the PERC commission which ended up resulting in GRAD Act – they don’t send letters like this as empty threats or else we would have gotten letters like this before. The threat is REAL. HBCUs are most threatened with accreditation loss nationally due to finances, but SACSCOC didn’t just send this to our HBCUs or smaller colleges/universities – EVERY SINGLE CAMPUS HEAD RECEIVED THIS LETTER. Yes, even F. King Alexander at LSU.
I do take this seriously. In fact, I don’t feel like the facts are being presented well enough that we all feel “scared”. It seems we had rather debate whether or not it is good or bad to scare us. Fear should motivate all of us to demand the best solutions and I fear that all will have to contribute something of value. Notice that I said contribute and not give up.
Mr. Harris:
Every collegiate football program in the state except for LSU, is “substantially subsidized,” as Mr. Griffin says. So to try and say LSU is self-sufficient is simply a smokescreen because no mention is made of the other colleges and universities. If examples are to be cited, one needs to look at the entire landscape, not just one corner.
I wouldn’t be so readily dismissive of Kennedy’s remarks. I’ve never seen a bureaucracy that didn’t expand to meet the money thrown at it from both historical and personal experience.
New Analysis Shows Problematic Boom In Higher Ed Administrators
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/higher-ed-administrators-growth_n_4738584.html
Administrative Costs Mushrooming
http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2408
Why Does College Cost So Much?
http://www.usnews.com/news/college-of-tomorrow/articles/2014/09/22/why-college-costs-so-much-overspending-on-faculty-amenities
The Great Healthcare Bloat: 10 Administrators for Every 1 U.S. Doctor
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/policy-ten-administrators-for-every-one-us-doctor-092813
Bureaucratic bloat happens in all large bureaucracies, public and private. It should actually be easier to control it in the public sector than the private sector because of ostensibly tighter controls in the public sector – note I said ostensibly. When bloat gets out of control in the private sector, a typical response is to get out the meat ax and lay off tens of thousands of people, reorganize, and get on with it.
Jindal strangled state government into slow asphyxiation and people outside of government who do not need of most state services barely noticed. If the meat ax is applied now, everybody will notice. But, given the dishonesty with which Jindal managed the state’s budget, will they believe it was necessary? Couple the Jindal policies (fully aided and abetted by a clear majority of the legislature) with John Kennedy’s stump speech (dismissed as irrelevant by the administration) and the answer is probably not.
People – this is not a newsflash. Many of us predicted economic collapse over a year ago. University presidents (LSU’s King Alexander talked about closure a year ago), higher education officials, journalists, well-known bloggers and many others were alarmed at the deficits and budget problems – A YEAR AGO. The legislature then fiddled while the state’s budget burned.
https://louisianavoice.com/2015/06/04/louisianavoice-reader-pens-open-letter-to-all-144-members-of-louisiana-legislature-asks-each-what-are-you-going-to-do/
And sadly, few, if any of us, including myself, went to our legislators to demand a solution. And here we are today….in a predictable situation that could have been prevented.
So now Jindal sits in his mansion (how in the hell did he afford that on the $130K he was paid as pretend governor?) and Kristy Nichols pulls in a couple hundred thousand as a medical industry lobbyist while Louisiana sinks further into the swamp. Credit – and blame – where due.
Typical liberals – incessantly whining about wanting more money from the productive citizens…
juandos sounds like a typical brain washed conservative who doesn’t believe science or actual economic facts because that is one of the main messages of the oligarch’s extremely effective propaganda machine.
To the point: The job “makers” have had 8 years of ever lower taxes. Business taxes have dropped by over 70%. And yet we are in a recession according to the state’s economist. That is because Conservative/Friedman/Chicago School economics don’t actually work. They benefit the very rich who drive the propaganda machine and suck in juandos and many others.
A gigantic step up out of the hole Jindal dug would be to restore tax rates to what they were when Jindal entered office. Businesses and the wealthy have enjoyed a great tax holiday and everyone else will see them as ungrateful whiners when they yell about this “huge” tax increase.
Regarding the article discussing the increase in University administrators; when I started teaching in 1984 there were two deans total in the college of engineering. There were probably 10 tenured or tenure track faculty members in the Dept. of Civil Engineering. When I retired (2012 I think) there were 3 tenure track faculty in civil engineering and I estimate 8 or so asst. deans/assoc. deans/executive associate deans/deans in the college. I suspect there are more deans (of various types) than there are tenure track faculty in any dept. in the college. In my opinion most of these are patronage positions.
@Dixie
Please understand that I had no intention to focus solely on higher education, it’s just that higher education is the most discussed in the articles I found on the internet. I was able to find the one on healthcare which is one of if not the largest budget items for Louisiana along with pensions. All bureaucracies are like that whether public or even private, but with government it would apply across all departments. Unfortunately higher ed is taking the heat for the sins of all of them.
See https://ballotpedia.org/Louisiana_state_budget
And it’s not just that the number of managers at LSU has increased, their salaries have ballooned at the same time that those of the profs who do the teaching and research have stagnated, and at the same time that the fees and tuition students pay has mushroomed. I am opposed to raising taxes to give more to universities that have become systems for lining the pockets of the managerial class that runs them, and runs them badly, at the expense of the students, staff, and professors. Here is my solution: give LSU its cut, and then give back $1 in tax money for every $1 in managerial salary it cuts by the end of the fiscal year. What were those numbers again? How many millions is LSU set to be cut? How many millions do its non-tenured, at-will managerial employees earn in salary?
Jethro, do you work at LSU? Or at any other higher ed institution? The number of higher ed employees in the state has been cut by nearly 20% between the FY14 budget and the one announced today. And most of us haven’t had pay increases in years. BTW, many of the “managerial” positions you decry are required because we are overseen so many different ways (we get audited 3 or more times a year at least, and that’s by the state) and are under increasing federal/accreditation scrutiny.
You’re a number cruncher Ul. So why don’t you download the spreadsheets of LSU salaries, and start crunching? They are available online. You will see I am correct in that an ever larger proportion of the LSU budget has been diverted into more managerial positions over the past decade. To use the argument that there is now more regulation so we need more managers is a poor defense given there are now also more students and the number of profs has been reduced and there are also more buildings and the number of custodial staff has been reduced. Managerial salaries have also grown disproportionately higher compared to those of the teachers and researchers. Again, you can say the managers’ responsibilities have increased. I guess that’s true if you accept that you need to pay a head of HR a quarter of million to make risky decisions like firing a tenured prof for using the f-bomb. My advice would be to hire someone smarter for less. But all that aside as my subjective opinion, please do us the favor of generating some of your pretty graphs and tables that show how the different salary categories have changed over the past few years at LSU. And then take a look at some individuals (and their spouses) with high salaries that seem to have been immune from the “most of us haven’t had pay increases in years” deal you mentioned.
Yep!!! Time to declare exigency and start getting serious about cleaning house at LSU! The administrative bloat out there is mind boggling!!
ulyank,
Here’s an article from Tom, Feb. last year, in your defense. Again, I didn’t intentionally focus on High Ed., it’s just what was available in example of how bureaucracies can bloat. We don’t know the full extent of the impact of existing cuts. Stephen Winham’s comments are insightful also.
Moody’s warns that Louisiana higher education can’t absorb further cuts; Gov. Bobby taking the state out of state colleges
https://louisianavoice.com/2015/02/23/moodys-warns-that-louisiana-higher-education-cant-absorb-further-cuts-gov-bobby-taking-the-state-out-of-state-colleges/
@Chris
Given the somber subject, your comment is quite like singing Hi-Ho the Witch is Dead at someone’s funeral. Frankly, I smell a troll.
Let’s trust Moody’s, alright, the bond rating corporation that told us the derivatives based on subprime mortgages were solid investments and thereby precipitated the Great Recession.
Jethro,
Unfortunately, until that issue is resolved at the federal level, financiers will pay attention to it with drops in ratings and increased interest resulting in increased costs to Hi-Ed.
Agreed! Only you don’t need to declare financial exigency. The managers don’t have tenure. They are unclassified, at-will civil servants. They can be laid off with minimal notice and severance. The problem is they run LSU. They control the salaries, the hires, the fires, and the lay offs. They take care of each other. You need some sort of outside directive from the leges, such as “We’ll reduce the amount of LSU’s budget cut, dollar for dollar, for every dollar in managerial, administrative salary you eliminate.” Lay off a bunch of assistant deans, HR flunkies, and risk management types, and millions will be saved. Best of all, no student, teacher, or researcher will miss them at all. It would only make the place more efficient because you get rid of paper pushers, the the rest won’t have to waste as much time on the bureaucratic forms they’ve created. Bonus points: getting rid of the people who decided firing Teresa Buchanan and getting sued by FIRE would be a good idea would save extra millions in squandered legal costs and the eventual payout to Buchanan. With their egos out of the way, LSU and Buchanan could reach a deal in which she gets her position back, the back pay, an apology, and the cost of fixing the mess is minimized.
That method is only taking a fire axe to the situation which has already occurred. It’s unintelligent design. Sure, you want to take out the dead wood, but you also want to preserve function, i.e., deliver efficient service.
You want “intelligent cuts”? When LSU was faced with massive cuts in the past a process for deciding what to cut was established that consisted of joint committees of profs, students, and managers who generated detailed lists of units that would be cut or preserved on the basis of how much they contributed to teaching and research. Is that the sort of considered, data-driven, mission-focused responsible process you mean when you call for intelligent cuts? If so, I agree with you, AsYouLikeIt. The problem is the managers behind those collaborative efforts are long gone. These days there is total, top-down control at LSU and a great deal of secrecy.
Then might this be the time to remark that Hi-Ed is probably not the place to be looking for further cuts? Seems they’ve done at least their fair share?
@ AsYouLikeIt. You really need to get your facts right. The money spent by Louisiana higher ed institutions was roughly the same last year as it was in 2008, about 1.5 billion. The difference is that tuition (a lot of it TOPS money) and fees have soared while the direct appropriation has declined. So LSU has not suffered much in the way of a reduced budget at all. The revenue sources have simply shifted. A lot of what looks like cuts to students, such as fewer classes, has involved transferring salary funds from the part of the budget that pays teachers and researchers to the part that pays managers. Now, with TOPS on the rocks, that is about to change. It’s not a question of cuts or no cuts; it’s a question of large cuts or larger cuts. Only someone who enjoys pastoral comedies enough to use the title of one as his/her handle would make the comment you did. Here’s my fav quote from As You Like It. “Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.” I mean LSU is damned, of course, not you.
“You really need to get your facts right.”
That would be a bit hard to do when confronted w/ conflicting assertions and no links to hard data. In a previous comment you’ve asserted that there were cuts in middle management. If there were, and no significant change in total revenue occurred, did the remaining management get raises? Where did the savings in reduced staff go? ulyankee asserts there were 20% cuts also. So there definitely are conflicting assertions in the arguments. I understand the shift in revenue streams, so not a problem there. The shift of salary funds from profs./research to management is one of my chief beefs concerning efficient delivery of services, with bureaucratic management preserving itself while function suffers, as in fewer classes. We have no difference in opinion there.
Do you have a link to historical spending for the LA. university system? That would probably help. You did mention to ulyankee that it was available online?
Your ad hominem attack on my handle has no bearing on the discussion. Save your fingers, I’m not easily moved by such.
How many of you current state employees and retired state employees remember the delayed-check idea utilized during the Roemer administration. I was on staff for the House of Representatives at the time. Then Speaker Jimmy Dimos directed that the House would follow suit. By delaying each check by a few days, the administration eliminated one check. I guess we eventually received that check somewhere down the road. Try explaining to your mortgage company, your utility companies and your creditors that their payments may be delayed. Steve, do you remember? I hope for the sake of current state employees, they don’t do that again.
I certainly do. It was one of many things we did because we had cash flow problems in addition to budget problems and couldn’t meet payroll. Another was simply not paying our bills which certainly endeared us to vendors doing business with the state. Those were horrible times and, unless the current problem is addressed soon, we could easily find our way back there again. Oh, wait, I forgot – According to John Kennedy all we’ve got to do is eliminate some of those pesky dedications and we’re on easy street. But, wait again, if there is actually money in those dedicated funds and we take it and use elsewhere, won’t we go broke again since it would be one-time money – the balances in the funds, that is? And, what will happen to the services the recurring money in those funds are supposed to fund? The mind boggles. I guess I’m just not as smart as John Kennedy or something.
Simple, Steve. Just eliminate those services and programs.
Palm to forehead…Why didn’t I think of that? 🙂
Clifford 55, I well remember the Roemer delayed-check caper. It was painful to be unable to meet our financial obligations timely and put food on the table. It was an accounting sleight of hand worthy of someone who pushed Medicaid payments into the next fiscal year and created last year’s SAVE tax credit foolishness that created non-existent funding for higher education. Somehow, when governors and legislatures destroy the state’s economy, it’s always state employees who suffer. Just ask those of us whose wages stagnated for the past eight years, and whose healthcare costs have spiraled, not to mention those who outright lost their jobs or were privatized out of their retirement benefits.
http://house.louisiana.gov/housefiscal/0112_16_OS_FiscalBriefing2.pdf
Here may be found the best non-partisan, unbiased analysis of our current situation and potential solutions you will find anywhere. ANYBODY investing the time necessary to go through it will find it IMPOSSIBLE to claim ignorance of where our money comes from and where it goes. DO NOT allow your elected officials to claim they do not have the information necessary to make informed decisions. Do not allow yourself to remain uninformed. READ THIS. It is long, but easy to understand and, even if you have problems with some of it because of terminology, you will gain a lot you may not know by investing the time to read it.
“DO NOT allow your elected officials to claim they do not have the information necessary…”
Which is exactly what my rep claimed Friday when I spoke with him. As if all of this is some big surprise. He’s also promising no new taxes. Unfortunately, the guy can’t be threatened with his post, he’s term limited to this session.
Yes, thanks for the link. You and I still diverge on whether the govt can shrink in tough times though, my view is that reduction in force will continue to be an option. The same way it is in the private sector.
See the below link for the reason all this is happening and remember it when some weasel from the trade representative’s office is making speeches in NO. Fleming is an equivocator on the issue, so you can be sure he’ll vote for it and Vitter isn’t yet out of office. I know he will.
2014 Continues a 35-Year Trend of Broad-Based Wage Stagnation
http://www.epi.org/publication/stagnant-wages-in-2014/
Thanks for the link, Stephen. I still have my connections up there. I had already read it. Actually, I spoke to a fiscal division staffer in December. He told me how bad it was going to be.