Category: State news

Joshua Sandquist, of Madison, is a research scientist in zoology at UW-Madison.

When I left a major corporation in another state to take a job at UW-Madison, I cut my salary in half. I wanted to do something worthwhile and provide a public service. Part of the deal, however, was good health insurance and pension. Many state employees made the same deal, which the governor now wants to rescind.

MADISON, Wis. — A key part of Gov. Scott Walker?s stalled plan to balance the state?s budget in part through making public workers pay more for benefits faces a Friday deadline.

UW-Madison Provost Paul DeLuca sent an e-mail to members of the campus community Sunday morning asking people to “engage in this debate” that?s taking place just down the road in the Capitol and around the Capitol Square — and which is reverberating across the nation.

Leaders of the University of Wisconsin System are urging Governor Scott Walker to reconsider a plan to spin off the system?s flagship Madison campus into an independent university — while the chancellor at Madison has quietly been encouraging the governor to set the campus loose, The Journal-Sentinel of Milwaukee reported.

Gov. Scott Walker says he has just a few words for the legislators, teachers and public employees who have chosen to defy his iron will: ?Get back to work.?

Actually, it?s pretty hard work to be an active citizen, to really use your First Amendment rights to speak, to assemble, to petition for the redress of grievances. And it?s costly. Teachers who are not teaching are giving up their pay. But they are standing on principle, as are the 14 state senators who have chosen to represent the will of the people.

So we don?t think our dissenting legislators, teachers, public employees and their allies need to get back to work. But we would like it if Gov. Walker would get to work.

Some top Wisconsin university officials fear that if UW-Madison splits from the rest of the University of Wisconsin System it will result in unnecessary duplications, competition for limited resources and skyrocketing tuition. Those were some of the circumstances that led state university campuses to merge 40 years ago, creating the UW System. Now, with a proposal to separate the flagship university from the rest of the fleet, some leaders are concerned Wisconsin will return to what they see as the bad old days.

Governor Scott Walker?s two-year budget proposal has not even come out yet, but some are already voicing concerns about a plan concerning the state?s universities. Specifically, one that could spin off the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

One by one, the groups marched their way to the state Capitol on Friday. Here were the teachers from the Milwaukee Public Schools, setting out from the Madison Children?s Museum. There were the students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, dressed in red, walking shoulder to shoulder along State St.

The faculty and an alumni group of the University of Wisconsin-Madison have different takes on discussions that would split UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System.

Elected leaders of the UW-Madison faculty Friday questioned their support for the plan that would free their campus from following some rules covering other state workers because of a separate plan by Gov. Scott Walker that reduces the power of state workers? unions.

Virginia is often cited as the example to examine a state?s top universities seeking more autonomy from lawmakers, but a move in 2005 that gave those schools more freedom gets different grades from those who have studied it.

A recent Wisconsin Policy Research Institute report says Virginians praise the changes and argues they are a model that could help the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A former University of Virginia president says Wisconsin?s system works better. And Virginia lawmakers voted to tweak the state?s relationship with the universities because of a sharp jump in tuition since the last revision six years ago.

A bill aimed at busting public workers unions in the US state of Wisconsin prompted mass protests and a statewide police hunt for Democratic lawmakers who fled to block the measure?s passage Thursday.

Madison police said Friday they are worried about clashes between opposing political groups when supporters of Gov. Scott Walker descend on the Capitol on Saturday, when a sixth day of protests against the governor?s collective bargaining proposal is planned.

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is pushing back the release of the state?s two-year budget by a week. Walker had planned to release it on Tuesday. Instead, he will still deliver a budget speech on Tuesday, but he won?t actually release the budget itself for another week.

Some 260 faculty members at UW-Madison have signed a letter expressing concern about Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal to deprive public workers in Wisconsin of the right to collectively bargain.

The letter reads, in part: “Collective bargaining has been critical to providing decent standards of living to millions of Americans, playing a central role in the creation of this nation?s large middle class. Unions have also been crucial vehicles for democracy, giving workers a voice in their places of employment and in society as a whole. Curtailing workers? ability to form unions and to bargain collectively can only diminish the economic and political benefits that the practice has brought to our state.”

Yesterday, University of Wisconsin-Madison students walked out of classes at the urging of student government and campus newspapers and marched to the Capitol, about a mile away. There, they joined protesters who filled the rotunda to chant, bang drums and sing, and spilled outside.

Wisconsin is looking to Virginia as a model for restructuring its university system, and UW officials have approached Gov. Scott Walker about becoming a more entrepreneurial and independent university with more authority to raise tuition. But ironically, Virginia itself is effectively putting its own restructuring plan on a two-year hiatus to reevaluate it. A commission appointed by Virginia?s Republican governor is recommending reversing some of the plan?s most significant changes.

Madison – University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said Thursday that “the status quo is not an option” and pressed for the school to gain greater administrative flexibility to deal with looming budget cuts.

Dozens of protesters who camped out in the Wisconsin Capitol overnight said Friday they?re prepared to stay as long as necessary while an anti-union bill remains under consideration. As many as 25,000 protesters descended on the Capitol on Thursday for a full day of raucous chanting and peaceful demonstration. Several hundred, including UW-Madison students, spent the night, some bundling up in pajamas under blankets and in sleeping bags while others simply used their jackets as pillows and slept in street clothes.

Chancellors at state universities around Wisconsin say they want the same autonomy under consideration for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

On the most turbulent day yet of demonstrations against Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill, Democratic state senators successfully delayed the controversial legislation by walking out of the Capitol Thursday and setting up camp across state lines.

In a move lawmakers said they had never seen before, Democrats left the Capitol Thursday morning, which prevented Senate Republicans from voting on the governor?s controversial budget repair bill.

In a year when governors across the country are competing to show who?s toughest, no matter what the consequences, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin stands out as the first to bring his State Capitol to a halt.