Governor Jim Doyle helps make the case for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The Governor met on Monday with members of the International Olympic Committee, which is reviewing Chicago’s bid to host the summer games. If the city is selected, Wisconsin would host several cycling events, such as a road cycling race that starts in Madison and a mountain biking course at Tyrol Basin.
Advocacy groups have long claimed Wisconsin’s overly litigious climate costs state businesses money and keeps others from locating here in the first place. For the past few years, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobby, has made reforming the state’s legal system one of its top priorities — proclaiming that excessive litigation “is costing businesses and individuals billions of dollars, and is affecting our international competitiveness.”
Not true, says a new study published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Law School that aims to “examine some of the persistent myths” about civil litigation. In fact, it says, the number of civil cases in which individuals seek compensation for personal injury and property damage fell 17.4 percent in Wisconsin from 1996-2007.
As students from the state’s private colleges lobby legislators for more financial aid, one lawmaker sees things differently.
Republican Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) says “it’s not surprising that young children who know nothing about life” want more money. He says the kids should be happy with what they’re already getting.
“Quite frankly, it’s unconscionable, as people get laid off or being told they have to take cuts in pay, for Governor Doyle and certain members of the state legislature to increase scholarships by 40% in two years!”
State Rep. Steve Nass is asking the University of Wisconsin System to review the conduct of UW-Stevens Point Chancellor Linda Bunnell in the wake of a report that she failed to tell police immediately that she had caused a car crash on the UW-Madison campus.
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle on Thursday proposed a $1.4 billion, two-year capital spending plan that he said will create 30,000 jobs in the state.
The plan has been approved by the Building Commission and must now be passed by the Joint Finance Committee to be included in the state budget bill, Doyle said in a statement.
Students from the state’s private colleges make their case at the capitol for more financial aid.
Jason Diaz is an Iraqi war veteran who currently studies nursing at Edgewood College. After being in the military for eight years, Diaz decided there’s no better job for him than nursing.
“It’s compassion, caring, you know, helping others when they can’t help themselves, I’m mean, that’s the very core of it and that’s why I think it’s a good fit for me.”
Gov. Jim Doyle is proposing a $1.4 billion spending plan for state buildings that includes construction of several new research laboratories and a first-time state subsidy for the Bradley Center.
Doyleâ??s plan includes a major expansion at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, new energy and medical research buildings at UW-Madison and a new state public health laboratory in Madison. His plan also would spend $5 million over 10 years on maintenance at the Bradley Center, home of the Milwaukee Bucks.
An issue that came up at Friday afternoon’s state budget forum has been at the heart of a big debate in recent years. Expanded protections for same sex couples and allowing state employees to extend their healthcare coverage to domestic partners is included in Governor Jim Doyle’s budget.
Critics say these items should not be in the budget and they should be separate bills, others, like Laura Sommer, urged the state’s Joint Finance Committee to support the governor’s proposal.
Even in light of current economic turmoil, Wisconsin hospitals have remained strong and benefit the stateâ??s economy, according to a study released Thursday by UW-Extension and the Wisconsin Hospital Association.
Advocates for domestic partner benefits hope to gain the support of UW students. Once again this year, Governor Jim Doyle includes domestic partner benefits in his proposed budget.
Leia Ferrari of New Berlin is a UW student and member of the Coalition for Domestic Partner Benefits. “Faculty members who have left in the past have documented the lack of domestic partner benefits as one of their reasons for leaving” said Ferrari. “Faculty members don’t feel as if they’re being valued equally. It’s an issue of fairness and equality.”
The first research since the mid-1990s comparing the academic progress of students in Milwaukee’s precedent-setting private school voucher program with students in Milwaukee Public Schools shows no major differences in success between the two groups. John Witte, a UW-Madison professor is one of the key participants.
Members of the Wisconsin Coalition for Domestic Partner Benefits camped out on Library Mall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus Wednesday to encourage people to support their cause.
The “Day of Action” was designed to make it easy for students and faculty to contact lawmakers about the need for domestic partner benefits for state employees, including faculty on campus.
Armed with a Democratic majority in both houses, Gov. Jim Doyle is feeling confident about his chances with ideological addendums to this yearâ??s state budget. So confident, in fact, that he believes fourth timeâ??s a charm for a provision that would allow illegal immigrants from Wisconsin high schools to pay in-state tuition at UW System schools. The provision, voted down in three previous budgets due to ideological disagreements in the state senate, comes at a time when higher education is becoming more and more difficult to afford for the average high school graduate.
A humanities scholar told a crowd at the University of Wisconsin Tuesday that academic outreach programs help share the humanities with the Madison community and world, promoting a discipline currently ailing in the public eye.
Go ahead with plan for in-state tuition, says the La Crosse Tribune:
Again the Doyle administration has included a provision in Wisconsin’s biennial budget that would allow illegal immigrants who have graduated from a Wisconsin high school to pay in-state tuition rates at technical colleges and University of Wisconsin System schools.
The right thing to do is this: Support legislation that makes possible a college education and a path to documentation for illegal immigrant high school graduates. It doesn’t make sense to diminish the state’s store of human capital by forcing these students to stay in the shadows.
As part of a proposal set to be voted on by the Assembly today, individuals facing fines as the result of traffic violations would be allowed to keep their driversâ?? license as long as they stick to a payment plan.
Concerns are being raised about a proposal included in the state budget to grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates at UW campuses.
State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) says it a ridiculous proposal and should be an outrage for many people. He says it encourages people to break the law and would end up costing the state money to support that behavior.
A provision in Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s 2009-â??11 executive budget proposal would allow certain illegal immigrants in Wisconsin to pay in-state tuition at UW campuses.
Former “Malcolm in the Middle” star Jane Kaczmarek is getting in the middle of the battle over Wisconsin’s film incentives.
She and her “West Wing” actor husband Bradley Whitford, both of whom are Wisconsin natives, sent Gov. Jim Doyle and legislative leaders a letter recently asking them to work on improving the state’s current incentive program rather than scrap it.
“Monk” star Tony Shalhoub, a Green Bay native, also sent Doyle a similar letter on Thursday. Shalhoub spent three weeks in February shooting the independent film “Feed the Fish” in Door County and said that wouldn’t have been done here without the incentives.
(Jane Kaczmarek is an alumna of UW-Madison)
For the fourth straight budget, Gov. Jim Doyle has included a provision that would allow illegal immigrants who graduate from Wisconsin high schools to pay in-state tuition at University of Wisconsin institutions.
The state Legislature has stripped the item out of each budget in the past, but with a Democratic majority in both houses, advocates are hopeful it will be successful this time.
As part of national Sunshine Week (sunshineweek.org), March 15-21, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is bestowing its third annual Opee Awards in recognition of people and institutions that have had an impact on open government in Wisconsin during the last year.
….Media Openness Advocates of the Year (the “Mopee”): Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WISC-TV, WTMJ-TV. These four media outlets refused to take “You can’t know” for an answer when they tried to learn more about why police were not dispatched in response to a UW-Madison student’s call for help shortly before she was murdered.
The president of the UW System is calling on lawmakers to reduce the cuts to its campuses.
Under the proposed state budget, UW campuses would face up to $175 million in cuts. System President Kevin Reilly says that’s much greater than the $100 million in cuts they had originally been planning on.
Reilly called on the Legislature’s budget committee Tuesday to change those numbers, by reducing the governor’s requested one-percent across the board cut for state agencies. Reilly says it hits the UW System harder than most other agencies, due to the high number of non-GPR revenue sources they rely on for funding.
Student leaders in the UW-System say they recognize the state’s tight finances but they hope lawmakers won’t be tight-fisted as they consider how much money to put toward higher education.
Governor Doyle’s proposed budget gives student leaders some of what they want: domestic partner benefits for all UW-System employees; increased pay for faculty; and higher average amounts for need based grants. (2nd item.)
What’s missing, they say, is a tuition freeze at two-year colleges and tuition cap at four-year universities in the UW-System. Students also want need-based grants to more closely match tuition increases. Right now itâ??s calculated on percentage. They want a dollar for dollar calculation.
Gov. Jim Doyle is proposing $240 million in bonding over the next six years for building projects at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
It’s to renovate buildings or build new ones for engineering and science, freshwater science, research and public health.
In a news release, Doyle’s office says the money will help improve the state’s ability to create jobs and grow the economy.
Members of the United Council for UW students gathered at the Capital today to tell lawmakers they want more funds in the budget for education.
The students asked for additional funding for staff retention, domestic partner benefits for employees, student employment and continuing education.
Students come to Madison with their priorities for the upcoming state budget.
Funding the UW System benefits everyone. So says the United Council of UW students. Nicole Juan, executive director of the Council, says they want affordable tuition and financial aid, saying the amount of student debt affects career choices.
State workers could be moved from agency to agency at the whim of a high-level executive branch bureaucrat under Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget.
The proposal, tucked away in the 1,743-page bill, gives the power to permanently move state employees to the secretary of the Department of Administration. That person, currently Michael Morgan, is appointed by the governor.
The idea is all about being more efficient, said Department of Administration spokeswoman Linda Barth. In some cases, people in different state agencies do work in similar fields and should be consolidated into the same office, Barth said.
Quoted: Mark Sager of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a physician and specialist in aging issues and Alzheimer’s.
Dara Frank’s experiments with bacteria at the Medical College of Wisconsin require isolating 20,000 cells – by hand.
The tedious task takes about 160 hours and typically is done by scientists and students in her lab over two months. A robot that costs about $280,000 can do it in two days.
Frank, who has a doctorate in microbiology and immunology, hopes that the $10 billion for medical research included in the economic recovery act will enable the Medical College to buy one of the machines.
High above Madison in state government’s administration tower, two men you’ve likely never heard of are working feverishly to turn the riches of federal stimulus into economic salve for ailing Wisconsin residents.
“There is a drinking-out-of-a-fire-hydrant feeling about this,” said Alan Fish, a top University of Wisconsin official appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle along with Madison energy executive Gary Wolter to run a temporary unit dubbed the Wisconsin Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, which will close up shop in six months.
Wisconsin’s retiring superintendent of public instruction, Elizabeth Burmaster, has landed a post as president of Nicolet College in Rhinelander.
Elizabeth Burmaster, outgoing state superintendent of public instruction, has been selected as the next president of Nicolet College in Rhinelander.
(Burmaster earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UW-Madison and served on the UW Board of Regents.)
Federal funding for more embryonic stem cell lines is expected to help the university where they were first isolated: the UW-Madison.
Madison is home to the national stem cell bank, which distributes federally approved embryonic stem cell lines. During the Bush Administration, that meant only those created before 2001. Now that the funding ban has been overturned by President Obama, the embryonic stem cell bank could see more business.
The fed’s investment could also spur more interest from both a scholarly and commercial standpoint. Carl Gulbrandsen directs the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). He says private investment might be bolstered by the fact that embryonic stem cells are now in clinical trial for spinal injuries. The California company Geron is using a Wisconsin stem cell line.
The executive order President Obama signed Monday to remove previous barriers to stem-cell research has garnered praise from the scientific community and criticism surrounding its controversial nature.
Wisconsin’s drunken driving problem is at long last attracting legislative attention. Most proposals involve strengthening penalties, which clearly is warranted. For example, the first offense is only a violation, not even a misdemeanor, in Wisconsin. Unfortunately the sharp focus on penalties is hindering consideration of more comprehensive and effective measures.
Richard L. Brown is an associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Wisconsin’s county clerks have some issues with a provision in Governor Jim Doyle’s budget proposal.
The measure would require counties to register same sex domestic partners. That registry would be maintained by the register of deeds in each county and allow partners to access certain medical and financial benefits.
We don’t believe any public institution deserves a blank check from the taxpayers — especially at a time of economic distress.
But some austerity measures, designed to help the state grapple with a $5.5 billion budget shortfall, might produce short-term benefits at the expense of Wisconsin’s long-term well-being.
This week’s meeting of the Univer-sity of Wisconsin Board of Regents underscored the long-range danger.
A University of Wisconsin System spokesman said Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget does not skim 1 percent of donations meant for public broadcasting.
UW Extension Chancellor David Wilson warned publicly Thursday that Doyle’s budget might divert 1 percent of Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television donations. He said he was hearing from upset donors and warned the plan could hurt contributions.
Gov. Jim Doyle should rethink his plan to require the University of Wisconsin to transfer money from private donations to help balance the state budget.
The governor is trying to plug a $5.7 billion budget shortfall and is using a combination of cuts in spending and new taxes to cover part of the deficit. The state will also use about $3 billion in money from the federal economic stimulus plan to makes ends meet.
Proposed budget cuts would force the University of Wisconsin System to cut academic programs and impede its plans to educate more students and do more research, university officials warned Thursday.
President Kevin Reilly said the Growth Agenda – a long-term plan in which campuses boost enrollments, expand some academic programs and improve research – would be slowed under Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin on Thursday painted a grim picture of the universityâ??s fortunes under Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s proposed budget, saying it could result in the loss of faculty and staff, the elimination of courses, and caps on the numbers of students in popular programs.
Martin, speaking at a UW Board of Regents meeting, said she asked the deans of UW-Madison schools and colleges to explore how they would reduce 5 percent of their budgets, which roughly equals its share of cuts.
â??In every college, it would inevitably mean cuts in faculty lines, in academic staff and in graduate funding,â? Martin said.
A part of Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s budget plan that appears to use private UW System funds to balance the budget has caused confusion and drawn opposition from state and university officials.
Members of the University of Wisconsin System and the Wisconsin Legislature are teaming up to fight Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s proposal to reserve the right to use some private university money to help stabilize the state budget.
University of Wisconsin System leaders are questioning a provision in Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget that appears to use some income from private donations to help balance the state budget.
Doyle’s budget requires the system to cut 1 percent of its program revenue, or about $28.5 million, “to create additional efficiencies and balance the budget.”
UW System spokesman David Giroux said officials believe the budget would require campuses to transfer $10.7 million in income from gifts, donations and trust funds to the general fund. That doesn’t make sense, he said, and comes as universities increasingly rely on private funds instead of tax dollars for their operations.
The multi-billion dollar state budget deficit is forcing the UW system to tighten its belt.
UW System must cut up to $174-million over the next two years, of which $25-million must be used for student financial aid. The money will come from schoolsâ?? auxiliary funds. As a result, UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow says theyâ??ll have to delay projects and charge students $100 more a year to live in the dorms. (Fourth item.)
“The legislators need to rethink how to pay for financial aid and find another place to get that money,â? says Gow. â??Or, if it’s not available, then just reconsider this plan however well-intentioned it might be.”
UW System spokesman David Giroux says cuts are difficult to make and may affect student education. But, he says one thing they wonâ??t do is pass the buck along to students to make up losses.
WHA-TV and other Wisconsin Public Television stations will end analog broadcasting on April 5, James Steinbach, director of television for WPT, announced Monday.
After that date, WPT will transmit only digital signals, which are already on the air.
All of the other local TV stations ended analog broadcasts on Feb. 17, except for FOX 47, which will end analog broadcasts on June 12.
“We’re balancing several things,” Steinbach said in a statement. “Maintaining our analog channel delivers a real public service to viewers.”
The rules governing state construction projects are so outdated and cumbersome they cause delays, drive up costs and hurt quality, according to a report released Tuesday.
The University of Wisconsin System report recommends major changes in the way the state plans, approves and carries out $500 million in construction projects each year. Many of the laws and rules governing projects haven’t changed since the 1970s.
A proposal to allow UW faculty bargaining is facing criticism from a state lawmaker.
Governor Doyle’s proposed budget includes a provision that permits unions on campus, and that’s drawing opposition from State Senator Glenn Grothman. The West Bend Republican is asking the Legislature’s budget committee to kill the plan, which he says would cost the state more money and reduce the quality of the UW System.
Members of the UW-Madison Faculty Senate met Monday to reaffirm their stance on domestic-partner benefits in the state and how budget cuts might affect the university.
Among many items guaranteed to cause a fuss in Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s plan to fix the troubled state budget is the inclusion of a provision that would allow faculty members in the University of Wisconsin System to collectively bargain with the university administration. Currently, UW relies on a haphazard assortment of payment structures and hiring processes for its untenured professors that rely primarily on their merit as instructors and researchers. Doyleâ??s plan in essence allows staff of all ranks to unionize for improved benefits.
University of Wisconsin Chancellor Biddy Martin told members of the Faculty Senate Monday she predicts UW will be subject to over $50 million in budget cuts under Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s proposed biennial budget.
Members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Faculty Senate reaffirmed a resolution in support of domestic partner benefits for state workers at their monthly meeting Monday.
“We just want to give a really strong indication that we still are in support of this and it is a priority for us,” said UW-Madison Professor Ann Hoyt, who is chair of the University Committee. “It’s a matter of justice and equal treatment for equal performance. And there are instances of outstanding faculty who have left because we don’t have these benefits that are provided by other large corporations, and small ones, throughout the state.”
Several students and university officials are stressing the need for UW-Madison to join other Big Ten schools in providing domestic partner benefits to employees.
Dear Editor: When the solution to suffering is not to help those who suffer but to increase their ranks, we know emotions have gotten the better of us. Typically, we expect better from a columnist like Mike Ivey. This is what makes his Feb. 24 tirade calling for public employees to share the pain so disturbing.
Yes, there is a lot of suffering out there. Nobody should feel smug or safe in this economy. But it certainly doesn’t help anybody to dismantle vital public services just when they are needed more than ever.
Students at one UW school are standing behind the statewide domestic partner registry in Governor Jim Doyleâ??s budget proposal. From La Crosse, Danielle Kaeding reports on the debateâ?¦ (Second item, audio.)
After watching friends and colleagues lose their jobs, their retirement savings and increasingly their hope, I’ve got only one thing to say to any state worker worried about paying more for their health insurance: Cry me a river.
Here in Dane County, where a quarter of the workforce draws paychecks from the government, one can sense the growing rift between the public and private sector as the economy worsens. And we’re doing better than just about everywhere else in Wisconsin.
In a perfect world, University of Wisconsin women’s basketball coach Lisa Stone says she would like to build a roster of players solely from the state of Wisconsin.
As the father of AAU girls basketball in the state, Keith Noll heartily endorses that goal.
But in the real world, they both know it’s not going to happen.
The absence of a pay plan in Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s budget proposal may cause the University of Wisconsin System faculty and staff to experience a net pay decrease in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
UW-Madison released a statement Monday revealing its support for domestic-partner benefits in Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s 2009-â??11 biennial budget.
Although the state budget Gov. Jim Doyle proposed last week still has to pass the state Legislature, domestic partner benefits proposed in the Budget Address are already generating controversy and lawsuit threats.
