Looking at the 100-plus layoffs at SDSU, that Sioux Falls paper concludes that USD has better planners. School officials appear to agree:
South Dakota State University officials have announced layoffs, downsizings and vacancy eliminations that will cut more than 110 full-time positions.
The University of South Dakota, on the other hand, is laying off only three people and eliminating only eight other vacant positions.
The difference, officials at both schools seem to agree, probably hinges on a more aggressive approach USD took to job elimination and budget cuts the previous two fiscal years.
"I think last year, they got after it a little more aggressively than we did ... and did more than we did," SDSU Provost Laurie Nichols said. "In some ways, that was a smart move. We needed to be more aggressive" [Steve Young, "USD Worked Ahead to Avoid Layoff Pain Confronting SDSU," that Sioux Falls paper, 2011.05.08].
My friends at SDSU emphasize a portion of the story tucked well below the fold:
SDSU had to account for a $1.85 million shortage in state support, as well as almost $2 million in what it called unavoidable and transitional costs, covering everything from the loss of federal money for its financial aid office to phasing out low-enrollment programs the next two years.
In addition, it had to cut $1 million from the Agriculture Experiment Station budget and $818,644 from the Cooperative Extension Service Budget.
At USD, officials had to trim $1.26 million from the school's budget and $570,476 from the Sanford School of Medicine [Young, 2011.05.08].
If USD were absorbing as much of a cut as SDSU, USD's "superior planning" would still get swamped. The big cuts at SDSU come in the Ag College, which is supported by tuition, research, and Extension. The tuition increase can offset a third of the cuts in the Ag College, but SDSU is having to deal with federal cuts that don't hit USD with a similar magnitude.
Comparing the cuts at SDSU and USD is thus like comparing apples to oranges, or as the SDSU ag department might tell you, soybeans to sorghum.