CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) -Chancellor Jim Rogers has told Nevada
regents that spending-cut proposals requested by Gov. Jim Gibbons
for the next two-year budget would require the equivalent of
amputations to higher education programs that could never be restored.

Gibbons has directed state agencies to prepare what-if scenarios in the event that 14 percent budget cuts are needed to cover a revenue gap in the 2009-11 biennium. Those reductions would be in addition to 4.5 percent in statewide cuts already made to reduce the current biennium budget by $900 million or more because of revenue shortfalls.

Under a 14 percent cutback proposal, $96 million a year would be
eliminated from projected funding levels for the Nevada System of
Higher Education during the 2009-2011 budget. Rogers said that would be a cut "in the basic nutrition necessary to keep education alive."

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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