A preliminary budget will be presented to the Board of Regents June 19. The plans to help with future budget cuts, however, have been changed.

Previous ideas of using employee furloughs of 12 half-days have been rejected, and the new plan is to begin an internal shift of money. This new plan will not have an effect on the decision to eliminate 60 employees.

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture will be seeing an 86 percent budget cut.

“It is a pretty severe hit,” said Fred Kirschenmann, director of the Leopold Center. “We will not be able to do any new research in the next funding period and there will be a whole lot less money for research assistants and graduate students.”

“The immediate impact is it canceled a number of the programs we’ve had for conferences and extension programs,” said Michael Duffy, associate director for the center. “We’ve been able to honor the commitments we’ve made up to this point and time, but we’re trying to figure out where to go from here.”

Kirschenmann said the budget situation will also affect staff morale.

“It is always difficult to maintain a high morale when your legs keep getting cut out from under you,” he said.

“I’m disheartened,” Duffy said. “Not so much because they cut the Leopold Center’s budget – more importantly, this represents a couple of things that I think are disturbing trends.”

Kirschenmann said the budget cuts are also affecting grants and additional funding for the center.

“There is one grant that is in question,” he said. “They want to fund it, but don’t know if the center will be around for the four years of the project.”

“It’s not so much about the Leopold Center as it is a vision for the future of agriculture,” Kirschenmann said.

Many groups are being impacted by the budget cuts, including the solar car team, which will see a $5000 reduction in its funding.

The Iowa State Center will eliminate window-washing, and Stephens Auditorium will host fewer programs.

“To absorb the budget cuts, we’ve reduced programming by three shows,” said Mark North, executive director at the Iowa State Center. “Jazz will not be presented, and we’ve reduced one dance and one world performance.”

Along with not offering as many shows, they have had to freeze one staff position, North said.

“As funds become available, and if we feel the risk is a reasonable one, we’ll look at bringing back jazz,” North said.

They will bring back the dance and world performances as it becomes cost-effective.

“[The budget cuts] were not welcome,” North said. “It’s the state of affairs currently – everyone needs to pull together to get through this.”

The Institute for Physical Research and Technology has been one of the hardest-hit with budget cuts, said Thomas Barton, director of the institute.

“We have not worked out the details yet,” he said. “But people will undoubtedly be involved.”

About $2.5 million is being cut from their budget.

“The first thing we’re doing is getting rid of every bit of flexibility in our budget,” Barton said. “This is not a good thing. When you need money for matching cost grants or faculty, those funds won’t be available.”

Barton said the next step will be organizational reductions.

“I have some emotional feelings one way,” Barton said. “We’d rather take a half-day off so that our fellow employees wouldn’t lose their jobs.”

He said there are many complexities when working with furlough policies, however.

“It’s very complicated,” Barton said. “I recognize why the decision was made, but in my heart, I think it is a shame.”

Barton plans to have more of the details worked out by next week.

The budget must be approved by July 1 and the Board of Regents will meet at Iowa State next week.

“To us, this is a question about whether or not the work is a priority to the state legislature,” Kirschenmann said. “It is whether what we’re proposing is a priority for the citizens of Iowa. If it’s not, there are interests outside of the state that do think it is important.”

“We can spend a lot of money on economic development, but if nobody wants to live here, what difference does it make?” Duffy said.