Just to follow-up on yesterday's post (below) with a couple of points to help put higher education funding issues in perspective.

First, one idea that has been brought into the mix of late, and highlighted in a news story today, is to reduce the number of state government employees, and then take the accumulated savings from that to apply toward the budget for higher education.

But here are a couple of facts that are perhaps pertinent to that proposal:

• Between December 31, 2007 and April 24, 2009, the number of full-time employees in Higher Education and LSU's Health Care Services Division increased by 1,007. (Includes an increase of 382 at Higher Education, and 625 at HCSD)
  
  
• During the same time period, the number of full-time employees at all other state agencies decreased by 340.

In other words, the growth trend in state government employment is precisely in those areas that would purportedly benefit from reversing state government employment growth. Just something to think about. There's an inherent conflict in there somewhere.

Second point:

As I mentioned below, the total recommended budget for Higher Education in the FY 10 Executive Budget was $2.638 billion, a reduction of $219 million, or 7.7 percent, from the $2.857 billion existing operating budget for FY 09.

However, for FY 09, Higher Education operating budgets also included $1.636 billion in "restricted" funding. So, factoring for those funds means an FY 09 total funding level for Higher Education of $4.493 billion, and the $219 million proposed reduction for FY 10 brings a decrease from the previous year of 4.8 percent.

And that's before you even consider any of the other Legislative funding actions mentioned below.