In his latest column, Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister says the state is unfairly penalizing LSU by handing it the largest cut of any higher education institution in the state despite attracting the most TOPS scholarship recipients.
“Why is it that when lawmakers decide to administer cuts to higher education, they choose to base it on the number of TOPS participants? You win the race, but get handed the bill,” he writes. “Does that make sense to you? Why wouldn’t the best results get rewarded as they do in the real world? In fact, that’s the principle TOPS is based on: perform and get rewarded.”
LSU is facing a $10 million cut based on the number of TOPS students attending the university, says McCollister, who is also an LSU Board of Supervisors member.
“The next closest university is the University of Louisiana at Lafayette at about $3.5 million, then Southeastern Louisiana University at just over $2 million, and the next six schools each will see cuts of less than $1.5 million,” he writes. “That is a big difference for the “winner” to bear and a troubling reward system.”
McCollister says that too often the parochialism that pervades the state is the basis for “across the board” policies and cuts, which often punishes success, supports mediocrity and even finances failure.
“This is not a formula for greatness—or even one that encourages it,” he writes. “In this environment, you can see why it becomes feasible for LSU—at the top with great value, more potential and growing—to propose moving to a ‘private’ model and saying to the state, give us a flat amount of funding support and then “cut us loose” to operate on our own. Let us handle tuition, purchasing, benefits and pensions, and free us from other mandates by the state. Let us control our own destiny.”
He notes the Legislature took a step in this direction last year when it allowed LSU to begin to handle procurement and risk management.
“A free market for LSU looks a lot more appealing than the politics and parochialism it has endured in the past. It is a bold idea that LSU President F. King Alexander has put on the table, and one that should be explored by all who believe being the best should win in Louisiana,” McCollister writes. “I believe that.”
Also in his new column, McCollister calls out state Sen. Yvonne Colomb for her comments in February last year over the planned closure of the Baton Rouge General Mid City emergency room. Colomb said at that time: “People are going to die. How do you put the lives of our people in jeopardy because of money? We are about to put the Capital City in a death zone.”
“Have you heard or read of any ‘death zone’ in our city since these comments appeared in The Advocate more than a year ago?,” asks McCollister, who also notes state Sen. Bodi White said the closure would “affect everybody. It’s going to affect the people in south Baton Rouge, the people in Central, East Feliciana, Zachary.”
“Now a year later, could White show us evidence? Because that is neither fact nor reality, according to hospital officials,” McCollister writes. “Were these two politicians, a black Democrat and a white Republican, just both guilty of rhetoric over reality? And are we just hearing more of the same lately from politicians and Together Baton Rouge (the same group who gave us the $18 million tax increase for CATS, which is a disaster)?”
And speaking of the Capital Area Transit System, McCollister says it’s time for the CATS board to reconsider private management now that another CEO has resigned.
“CATS Board Chairman Jim Brandt should pull out the 2013 TMG Consulting report, take it to the board and consider private management by professionals,” he writes. “He has indicated the board will not consider that. They are wrong to close that door after taxpayers gave them another $18 million. We deserve for every option to be considered. Doing the same thing as in 2013 and expecting different results is insanity. The taxpayers and riders deserve the best solution—not another disaster.”
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