Let me fix that for you:

Other that,I concur!

As a manager you quickly learn where you need to focus and how to prioritize. If you want to lead great teams you have to know how to assemble a great team without going on a safari to track down qualified candidates. Finding the proverbial diamond in the rough will take you a lot longer than saying "find me a candidate with demonstrable experience in something related to X with a degree in Y from a top Z school". Of course, don't be completely rigid and if you happen across the diamond in the rough - all the better. You just can't send all your time looking for her/him.

In the early 2000's, during the middle of an interview for a SWE position, the hiring manager (proverbial MS in Systems Engineering) indicated to me that I was an ideal candidate except for one shortcoming: I didn't have the 15yrs of Java experience they were looking for. I expressed my disappointment, shook the woman's hand and wished her the best of luck finding the right candidate. I later heard the project was an abysmal failure...

Good discussion, but you might be forgetting something ... productivity and long term impacts. What will the long term costs be of not doing a tech refresh? How are the departments likely to respond (e.g. buy their own computers) and what are the costs to the institution? Inaction will inevitably have a cost.

50% sounds like [s]he either pulled it out of their ass or like someone else mentioned - the financial situation is dire. Like most discussions, you want to frame the conversation in the best possible way for you to win it. In your case, I would work with your boss to re-frame the discussion around cutting the right part 50%. Moving all engineering related expenses to line of business accounts would be a good first step, then you can take a look at the real enterprise IT. Of what remains, consider what you can outsource within the limits allowed by applicable security and regulatory constraints. Of the IT enabling expenses in line of business accounts, consider what portion of those are O&M vs new expenditures. Can new expenditures be deferred without impacting productivity/revenue? Can you consolidate, outsource, or invest/buy-down continual obligations (it's amazing how many orgs won' consider that b/c they're too short sighted)? Ensure each of those areas is related to an overarching business strategy ... that's your justification for those areas. Make sure that the linkage includes a rough discussion about the revenue/productivity impact of each area both for new purchases/continual obligations for both the engineering and enterprise IT expenses. Obviously, you're not going to cut 50% of all IT spending and still have the full level of effectiveness and efficiency, not within a FY. Perhaps you should consider a more phased approach?