How could a government cut its budget by eight percent and arrive at a $75 million reduction in spending?

In December 2011, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead called on state agencies to cut their budgets by between five and eight percent. An eight percent budget cut would have amounted to $75 million, and this news created quite a bit of stir in some quarters, and quite a bit of confusion in others.

While some asked: how will people survive such draconian cuts; others asked: how could a government, with a biennium budget of approximately $8 billion, cut its budget by eight percent and arrive at a $75 million reduction in spending? There is much less here than meets the eye!