Joe Hutter needs a reality check. Hutter, a Republican member of the Iowa Legislature from Bettendorf, recently proposed a bill that would eliminate the role of university president from each of the three Iowa Regent universities.

Instead, the roles would be consolidated under an “executive director” who would have direct administrative authority over all three universities.

What kind of parallel universe is this man living in? We understand (and feel the brunt of) a strained state budget, but Hutter’s estimate that the move would save the state $1 million in administrative costs is more than a little sketchy.

Barbara Boose, Board of Regents communication specialist, said in a recent Daily article the move would actually create more bureaucracy, and that given the geographic distance between the universities, there would still need to be “some sort of chief executive at each university.”

What? Universities can’t run themselves?

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy isn’t exactly expendable. Nor is University of Northern Iowa president Robert D. Koob or University of Iowa president David Skorton.

We sincerely doubt these three are skipping out of their jobs early to spend their spring break sunning in Cancun.

Besides the 16-hour days invested by university presidents, we should take into consideration that UNI is different from U of I is different from Iowa State.

Iowa State don’t have a highly ranked creative writing school. U of I doesn’t have a large teaching program. Not every university can aspire to Iowa State’s high level of research.

Not to mention local issues.

A traveling “executive director” could hardly address the university’s relationship with the local community, a relationship which should not, and cannot, be ignored.

Geoffroy represents the ISU community to the occasionally untrusting city of Ames, and does a good job of it. We don’t want to see that relationship compromised.

He also travels the state, recruiting new students, and he probably does a million other things we don’t know about, but would definitely miss if his position was eliminated.

We do appreciate Hutter’s desire to find innovative budget-cutting ideas that don’t involve raising tuition. But getting rid of the university president will do far more harm than good.