The Higher Education Appropriations Committee presented a slashed budget to the Executive Appropriations Committee Wednesday.

After meeting with the education committee for nearly three hours the day before, higher education committee co-chairman Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, presented a budget-cut proposal that did not meet the guidelines asked for.

The executive committee asked the higher education committee to cut specific programs. “If we do not designate which programs to cut, [the executive committee] may choose programs that we want to protect,” Hillyard said during the meeting Tuesday.

But the members of the higher education committee could not agree on which programs to cut.

In a year where higher education received a $21 million budget reduction, any additional slash will be extremely detrimental, Hillyard said.

He told the executive committee about the higher education committee’s decision to cut each institution’s budget by the percentage of the state budget they receive while allowing the presidents to decide which cuts to make.

If the executive committee grants the presidents the right to cut their own budgets, the higher education committee will require them to report on those cuts by September 2002.

The executive committee will vote to approve the budget proposal early next week.