An additional $2.75 million will be cut from Iowa’s three public universities according to a Friday report from the Iowa Department of Management.

The cut stems from the 2017 Iowa Legislature state budget cuts which total $118 million. The Iowa Department of Management was left a total of $11.5 million in cuts to divide among various departments including administration, agriculture, economic development, health and human services and the justice system.

Education received the largest cut, totaling $5.38 million, which is to be split among all three public universities. This increase will push Iowa State’s budget cut to $8.99 million when compared to the original $8 million. The University of Iowa will increase from $8 million to $9.24 million and the University of Northern Iowa from $2 million to $2.52 million.

The budget cut announcement comes directly off the tail of Thursday’s Board of Regents meeting, in which each of the three institutional heads addressed plans to face the lost funds.

President Steven Leath focused on deferred maintenance, keeping open personnel positions unfilled, along with the cancellation/delay of several capital improvement projects.

Leath stated during the meeting that he was aware of the difficulties brought on by the cuts, but he sees the university’s cost cutting methods as necessary and unavoidable.

“Investment in public higher education is an investment in a prosperous Iowa long term,” Leath said.“We are facing a very difficult budget challenge. The cut we are seeing now is very unfortunate.”

In total all three universities must cut a total of $18 million from their combined budgets.