$15 million cuts may be hard for Purdue to compute

Options are getting tougher for Purdue University administrators charged with cutting the budget.

Purdue’s treasurer says the campus dodged reducing pay or letting employees go when Gov. Mitch Daniels asked for a return of $35.8 million in appropriations.

As part of those cuts, Purdue will forgo $19 million in federal stimulus funds that had been earmarked for repairs.

But a larger $67 million “structural” deficit anticipated in the next two-year budget cycle that starts July 1, 2011, is far from fixed.