Today was the deadline for state-government agencies in Nevada to submit proposals to the governor’s budget office outlining how they would trim spending by up to 8 percent, and most agency leaders complied, the Associated Press reported. But, true to his word, the chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, James E. Rogers, was not among them.

Mr. Rogers had insisted from the outset that he would defy the request from Gov. James A. Gibbons, who first called for 5-percent cuts, then increased the amount to 8 percent. The governor, a Republican, wants to trim the state’s $6.8-billion budget by some $285-million. Higher education’s share of those savings would amount to nearly $103-million, according to the AP.

“I can’t cut,” the outspoken chancellor told the news service on Wednesday, “and I’m going to try to talk the governor into understanding that we can’t cut and he must take it from somewhere else.” Mr. Rogers said he had met with Governor Gibbons on Monday and had given him a partial list of the “devastation” that the proposed cuts would cause the state’s colleges and universities. —Charles Huckabee