SUNO, UNO rally to fend off cuts

20th April 2015   ·   0 Comments

Campus officials, students, alumni and supporters from the University of New Orleans and Southern University at NewOrleans traveled to Baton Rouge last week to present a united front in an effort to stave off proposed budget cuts to higher education as state lawmakers grapple with a budget deficit at the State Capitol.

Louisiana is facing a $1.6 billion shortfall for the fiscal year that begins in July, and state lawmakers are scrambling to find ways to balance the budget without crippling the state, FOX 8 News reported.

Students, administrators, activists and state lawmakers chanted “No funds, no future” as the 2015 legislative session kicked off last week.

With talk of mergers and school closures being revisited, SUNO and UNO supporters were well-represented at the rally.

Both UNO and SUNO, the city’s only Black public university, have struggled to boost their enrollments since Hurricane Katrina. Nearly a decade after Katrina, SUNO continues its rebuilding efforts with the state delaying the release of funds earmarked for renovation of the school’s campus in Pontchartrain Park.

“It is outrageous that he would consider to cut the sole thing that produces productive citizens,” said Dylen Johnson, SUNO Student Government Association Presi­dent.

“It’s too disheartening to think about what those kinds of cuts can do if the initial budget cuts were definitely put through,” said David Teagle, president of the UNO Student Government Association.

There are fears that the higher education system could face up to a $600 million reduction in the new budget. Discussion was also had during the Appropriations Committee meeting.

Long before the legislative session kicked off, there was talk about revisiting the die of merging or closing the two Lakefront campuses.

“The way that the budget is structured right now, it’s about half a billion of contingency dollars If for some reason that fails, actually the cuts to higher education are even more severe than that,” Rep. Helena Moreno, D-New Orleans, told FOX 8 News.

UNO officials told FOX 8 that if every one of Gov. Piyush Jindal’s ideas for funding colleges and universities is adopted, the lakefront campus will still lose more than $7 million, and if none of the proposed solutions become reality, there will be an impact of three times that amount.

Teagle said campus life would suffer.

“We would have to cut back on things like enrollment programs, we’d have to cut back on the assistance that we can give to students, so that it makes it harder for the students that are there to be able to succeed,” Teagle said.

“I don’t like getting down to the point where our choices are higher education and health care,” Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, told FOX 8.

Still, he said there is duplication in the higher education system.

“I’m not for closing UNO and SUNO or combining them, whatever, but I mean let’s face it, if you look around and I’m not going to point out any particular college, there are some that probably need to be combined,” Martiny said.

In light of the budget crisis there are a number of bills that would increase the amount of revenue going into the state’s bank account, but Governor Bobby Jindal said he will not support any new taxes.

“I think we’ve got the strength in numbers though to try to push the governor in that direction, but it is going to be difficult considering the pledge that he has signed,” Moreno told FOX 8.

“You have to throw in there the fact that this is an election year and nobody wants to vote for taxes that are going to get vetoed,” Martiny added.

Still, lawmakers vow to work to limit the pain on universities and colleges funded by the state.

“Not only can we not go home, we should not go home because there’s nothing more important that we have to do,” Rep. Wesley Bishop, D-New Orleans, an alumnus and administrator at SUNO, told FOX 8 News.

Some of those in attendance at last week’s rally pointed out that funds allotted for tax-incentive programs could have been instead use to support public universities like UNO and SUNO.

“While they are being subsidized, higher education is being sacrificed on the altar of corporate America,” UNO student Ben Aleshire told WWL.

House appropriations committee member John Schroder, R-Covington, addressed Aleshire’s concerns. “I’ve yet to see a member of the business community come in here with a solution to this problem,” he said. “We are third in the nation in giveaways.”

Schroder said that while the business community speaks in favor of education, “not one is going to offer up a percentage of their exemption.”

“What solution would the business community have?” he asked. “We know what the solution is, but do we have the fortitude to do it?”

WWL reported that Louisiana State University at Alexandria student Jesse Elliott told the committee about lost teachers who’ve left for other states because of the workload.

“The state needs to prioritize the needs of these students and recognize the potential in us and the indispensability of these institutions,” Elliott said. “We are the future of the state. If we are not allowed to become that, we have no future.”

“They’ve been asking us to do more with less, and we’ve done that,” Grambling State University student Erik Johnson said. “Now, they’re asking us to do more with nothing.”

“Why is it always the institutions of higher learning that serve the state’s poor and working-class families that are on the chopping block?” Ramessu Merriamen Aha, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly. “Why does the gravy train that gives hook-ups and freebies to the wealthy and politically connected never dry up?

“A big part of the problem is that Louisiana is pro-business and anti-education, anti-equity and anti-justice.,” Aha added. “The state has not demonstrated a commitment to upholding the U.S. Constitution, democratic principles or economic justice.”

Others blamed the Jindal administration for refusing to accept Medicaid expansion and rejecting federal assistance that could have boosted the state’s coffers and made fewer cuts necessary.

“There’s a lot that could have been done and should have been done to support higher education and prevent this situation from coming up again,” SUNO supporter Heru Simmons told The Louisiana Weekly. “There are all kinds of pet projects that state lawmakers refuse to discontinue financing and wasteful spending in areas that hold very few benefits for the average Louisiana resident.

“It’s all about priorities.”

This article originally published in the April 20, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.