Top stories of 2011 - No. 2:South Dakota Educators look back on S.D. budget cuts - JEFF BAHR, Aberdeen News

For many state agencies, the cuts proposed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard for fiscal year 2012 didn't actually total 10 percent. But the cuts still had a significant impact on education. “We certainly struggled,” said Northern State University President James Smith. “We had to not fill positions that we needed to fill, given our growth. We reduced our number of graduate assistants that are very important in supplying assistance to our faculty. We made some just basic belt-tightening all the way around, which doesn't make a lot of sense when you've grown as much as we have in the last two years. I would say it was certainly painful.”