He said, though, that except for between $400,000 to $800,000, the deficit seems to be caused by spend- ing on some of Carnesale's "unmet priorities,"such as funding research opportunities for juniorfaculties and upping salary increases to lure newprofessors.

Both Kernan and Levinson said they were puzzledby the nature and the size of the cuts.

"A big portion of the $1.5 million are for theunmet priorities of the dean. It doesn't seemsensible for us to warrant extreme options likelayoffs," Levinson said. "It seems unduly harsh inthe way it's been carried out."

"The thing that's really tough and puzzling isthat they say the reason is financial and thatthings that are currently being done at the schoolare what the dean wants, but the dean is leaving,"Kernan said.

Carnesale officially took over as Universityprovost July 1, but he will continue to serve alsoas Kennedy School dean until a successor can befound.

Singer said that the personnel cuts will savemore than $800,000 in compensation costs. WhileSinger would not specify which departments orpositions had been affected, he said that "a vastmajority were done by restructuring around openpositions."

According to Singer, the budget cuts seem tohave been spurred by Carnesale's desire to leavethe Kennedy School financially healthy for hissuccessor.

"Dean Carnesale wanted to make sure the newdean was not faced with financial problems not of[his or her] own making," Singer said. "We havefull confidence that now our finances are sound."

Carnesale wrote in a second memo released July13 that he was "confident that the School and itsnext Dean will not confront an unmanageablefinancial situation...We must now establishprocedures to ensure that the cost savings in theSchool's administration are realized on acontinuing basis, and we must achieve greaterefficiency and effectiveness throughout theSchool.