Now at least they can't then decrease his budget to less than $10. Another way to do it is to provide for a certain percentage of "overhead" costs, as with e.g

Now at least they can't then decrease his budget to less than $10. Another way to do it is to provide for a certain percentage of "overhead" costs, as with e.g. NIH grants. So if for every $10 that goes to Professor X, $6 goes to the university to use as they please, they can't then fire Professor X without losing the extra $6 as well. (Naturally this only works with relatively larger amounts of money.)