Air pollution that risks a regulatory crackdown.
The prospect of a federal tax on carbon fuels.
The advantages of newer technologies.
These are among the factors compelling state government, private industry and environmentalists to evaluate what to do with the coal-fired power plants in Downtown Madison.
The state Senate has approved a measure that would allow University of Wisconsin System faculty and academic staff to form unions.
The plan would change state law to give about 17,000 faculty and academic staff — including 26 at the University of Wisconsin-Marshfield/Wood County — the right to decide whether to form collective bargaining units to negotiate their salaries, benefits and other employment conditions. It also would allow the employees to form up to 31 separate bargaining units across the state.
The campaign of a state Supreme Court candidate accused a judicial campaign watchdog of bias Wednesday.
Several high-profile bills passed the state Senate Tuesday.
State legislators passed a bill Tuesday that would allow faculty and staff from the University of Wisconsin System to form unions and bargain collectively, and to do so in any grouping they wish.
Responding to a United States District Court ruling last November, the University of Wisconsin and the state Department of Administration are holding a town hall meeting Thursday to hear community opinions regarding the future of the Charter Street coal plant and others in the city.
What do University of Wisconsin-Madison employees want in the new chancellor who will replace John Wiley when he steps down in September?
Some answers came in a public forum conducted by the chancellor search committee this morning at the Health Sciences Learning Center — though frigid temperatures, icy roads and a 7 a.m. start time limited attendance.
Kurt Zimmerman, an academic staff member in the School of Medicine and Public Health, said the committee should seek a campus leader who can improve legislative relations to correct a sometimes combative relationship with state legislators who control part of the university’s budget.
MADISON, Wis. — The state Senate approved a measure on Tuesday that would allow University of Wisconsin System faculty and academic staff to form unions.
The plan would change state law to give about 17,000 faculty and academic staff the right to decide whether to form collective bargaining units to negotiate their salaries, benefits and other employment conditions.
MADISON â?? Illinois Sen. Barack Obama ran his Democratic presidential nomination winning streak over New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to nine straight states Tuesday by handily capturing Wisconsin after a frenzied week of on-the-ground campaigning.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, rolled over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as expected to capture the Badger State’s GOP race and take a delegate lead of 942 to 245 nationally over Huckabee. It takes 1,191 to win the Republican nomination.
Quoted: John Coleman, a professor of political science at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Doyle had the most to gain and the most to lose Tuesday, mainly because of his high profile as an Obama backer.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at UW-Madison.
Is this somebody’s idea of a cruel joke?
….Of course, it’s not just newcomers who are wondering what’s going on and, more importantly, whether this is just a freak thing.
Ed Hopkins, assistant state climatologist at UW-Madison, says he wishes he had the answer and notes that many of his colleagues are scratching their heads as well.
Republican presidential front-runner Sen. John McCain continued to hammer home his theme that he is the candidate to protect America’s security.
The Arizona senator spoke at the Outagamie County GOP Lincoln Day dinner Monday night, following a momentous endorsement in Houston from former President George H.W. Bush, a nod of approval from an establishment figure in the Republican Party.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
WASHINGTON â?? Residents in three states will weigh in on the presidential contest today, but the stakes are highest in Wisconsin where Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama seek to gain momentum heading into next month’s primaries in Texas and Ohio.
Quoted: Ken Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
BELOIT, Wis. — It’s the state of liberal college students and conservative dairy farmers, where nearly 100 years ago Sen. Robert
Wisconsin is the last big state before next month’s primary elections in Texas and Ohio.
Both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton have invested a lot of time and money in Wisconsin. The state offers 74 delegates — which most polls indicate will be split fairly evenly between the two candidates, though the winner will get a few more, along with bragging rights. Obama has a slight lead over Clinton in the delegate race at this point, and a win in Wisconsin could help, though Clinton victories in Texas and Ohio could even the score.
The word “Liberal” may have been a badge of honor at one point at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and some of that tradition lives on, though students attending rallies there over the past week say that label is a bit outdated.
Quoted: Kenneth Goldstein, a political science professor at Madison.
Governor Jim Doyle says his priorities in dealing with a $652 million shortfall in state revenue collections will continue to be making sure education and health care needs are met. And while Doyle says he has no intention to raise any taxes to make up for the revenue shortfall, he does believe an assessment on state hospitals ought to be back on the table.
While the economy has slipped past the War on Terror as Americansâ?? top concern in choosing a Presidential candidate, many college-age voters – including those at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – still see it as a deciding factor. Election officials are expecting an above-average turnout of young voters, which could influence the outcome of tomorrowâ??s primary eleciton. Brian Bull reportsâ?¦(Audio.)
Gov. Jim Doyle is seeking applicants to serve as the nontraditional student member of the UW System Board of Regents, the governing body of the 26 UW System schools.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The state’s technical colleges are seeing a slight gain in students, which they say often happens when jobs become harder to find.
The biggest growth spurts in the past 30 years at Wisconsin technical colleges coincided with the national economic recessions of 2001, 1991 and the early 1980s. It’s still not clear whether the nation is in a recession now, but enrollment at the state’s 16 technical colleges is growing.
According to the latest estimates, the number of full-time equivalent students is up 1.8 percent compared to the last school year. In the previous two years, annual counts fell.
The verdict is still out on whether the economy has slumped into recession, but Wisconsin’s technical colleges say they’re noticing more students, which historically occurs when jobs get scarcer.
Early reports from a University of Wisconsin-Madison study raise questions about the value of federally funded tutoring sessions for low-performing Milwaukee Public Schools students.
MADISON, Wis. — The shooting at Northern Illinois University Thursday is the fourth at a U.S. school in a week, and the tragedy is hitting close to home for many families in southern Wisconsin.Some Rock County parents whose children are students at NIU all said they heard about the incident first through TV or radio. But in some cases, it was well more than an hour before they knew their children were OK.
Dave Smith’s daughter is a junior at Northern Illinois. He said that when he and his wife found out, they tried to track down their daughter, who was in basketball practice. Because of communications problems, the Janesville parents had to wait for their daughter to call them.
A terrible accident on the Beltline in the dead of night. A 7-year-old child is thrown from the back seat of a car.
Paramedics arrive, assess the child’s condition, and one of them calls University Hospital’s trauma center to report that the child is bleeding from the mouth and ears. They expect to get him to the hospital in 10 minutes.
The nurse who takes the call consults with a physician, and they determine that the child is suffering from a massive head injury, and the wheels are set in motion.
Two parts of a possible deficit-repair package – a tax on hospitals and continuing to collect the estate tax that officially ended on Jan. 1 – were suggested by Democratic leaders Thursday.
The state budget will face a $652.3 million shortfall, according to state officials Wednesday, $200 million more than projected last month. In a memo to the state Joint Finance Committee, which helps write the budget, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau said the deficit is largely due to decreased tax collections.
The state of Wisconsin will come up short for the 2007-09 biennial budget by $652.3 million, about twice what was projected in January, according to new numbers released Wednesday.
The turmoil in the economy is splashing red ink across the state’s books, doubling an earlier projection of the two-year budget shortfall to $652.3 million, the Legislature’s budget office reported Wednesday.
Gov. Jim Doyle responded by calling for more cuts to the state bureaucracy, more use of the state credit card and, possibly, dipping more into pots of one-time money. But most of the shortfall remained uncovered, and one independent budget expert said plans already announced rely on some of the same tactics that left the state’s finances vulnerable to deficits in the first place.
The slumping economy will result in state tax collections falling $650 million below projections in the current two-year state budget – 60% more than the shortfall estimated last month, a report warned Wednesday.
Aides to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle took austerity measures to bring that potential budget deficit down to about $416 million, an amount Doyle and the Legislature will try to make up this year. Those emergency steps included a delay in paying off $125.4 million in debt.
The state revenue shortfall initially estimated to be in range of $400 million dollars is actually considerably greater, according to the latest numbers. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau released projections Wednesday which indicate that Wisconsin faces a projected $652.3 million shortfall for the biennial budget period. LFB Director Bob Lang said in a letter to the co-chairs of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance that the January tax collections and February forecast “both point to further weakness in general fund tax collections.”
There may be tough times ahead for Wisconsin, as a projected revenue shortfall grows.
The latest report from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau puts Wisconsin’s budget hole at $652 million for the biennium, up from a projected $400 million shortfall last month.
As the news came in that he scored resounding victories over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia Tuesday night, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama pumped up an overflow Madison crowd at the Kohl Center.
“This is our moment. This is our time,” Obama said to overwhelming applause during a 25-minute stump speech in front of more than 17,000 supporters in the arena and another 2,000 in the Kohl Center’s Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion. “And where better to affirm our ideals than here in Wisconsin, where a century ago the Progressive movement was born?”
In 2004, Chenelle Heren voted to re-elect Republican President Bush and even campaigned for him.
Now the 21-year-old UW-Madison junior from Eau Claire is supporting Democrat Barack Obama after hearing the Illinois senator tell a crowd of 17,000 at the Kohl Center that he would end political divisions and unite the country.
“I’m more conservative and Obama has definitely expanded my horizons,” Heren said. “He’s opened my eyes and ears to a lot of things. I believe what he says.”
To stay competitive in its search for a new chancellor, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is planning to sweeten the pot â?? by as much as 66 percent.
While a pay raise is overdue, that’s a big chunk of change at one time. But it’s also the top of the proposed pay range, the $370,000 to $425,000 that university officials are considering for a salary as they begin to recruit for a successor to John Wiley, who steps down in September.
Governor Doyle predicts the state is in for tough times in the near future, as his estimate of a state budget shortfall grows.
Last month administration officials said the budget will likely be short $400 million, but now the Governor says that number may be closer to $500 million.
Nicole Neis came to Barack Obama’s rally Tuesday to help figure out how to cast her vote Feb. 19.
By the end of the night, she was a firm supporter of the U.S. senator from Illinois. But even before he took the stage, she said she was starting to lean toward him as she took in the capacity crowd at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Kohl Center.
With three more lopsided victories in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia on Tuesday, Democrat Barack Obama arrived in Wisconsin like a February freight train, telling a roaring Kohl Center crowd of more than 17,000 that “tonight we’re on our way.”
Awais Khaleel is a UW-Madison senior, and he is also one of a few Wisconsin â??superdelegatesâ? who could determine the Democratic nominee for President.
Gov. Jim Doyle announced Monday the newest appointment to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents.
MADISON, Wis. — Interstate 90 moved along like clockwork on Monday.
Since Wednesday, three separate incidents have led to massive traffic delays.
On Sunday, authorities shut a seven-mile section of the interstate down for several hours.
The UW Systemâ??s President has unveiled the so-called â??Growth Agendaâ? — which aims to improve the statewide campus network, and stimulate Wisconsinâ??s economy. As Brian Bull reports, part of the emphasis is on increasing the number of graduates from UW schools. (Audio.)
The Board of Regents recognized Friday the lifelong achievements of a regent whose resignation was spurred by Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s approval of the current state budget.
Wisconsin is finally getting in on all the lights, camera and action.
Itâ??s been just over a month since tax incentives for filming in Wisconsin went into effect on Jan. 1, and already several films are in preproduction within the state.
When a new chancellor begins at the University of Wisconsin this fall, he or she will likely earn a significantly higher salary than current Chancellor John Wiley.
What would the world do without potatoes?
The Irish found out during a famine, and it was not a pretty picture.
But the U.S. Potato Genebank in rural Wisconsin is playing a major role in preventing a repeat of that tragedy.
Wisconsin has an alcohol problem. According to a 2007 report released by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, this state is No. 1 in every type of drinking behavior – teen drinking, heavy drinking, adult drinking and binge drinking. Furthermore, we’ve held that top spot for seven years.
Just as interesting as the states represented in the University of Wisconsin football team’s 2008 recruiting class are the states not represented.
Did you ever think you would see a day when the Badgers would land a total of six players from SEC country (Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas) and another three from Texas — and zero players from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, four states in the Northeast that have been very good to UW over the years?
The 2008 class that was unveiled Wednesday wasn’t a fluke year, either. The Badgers also didn’t sign any players from the Northeast last year and signed just one — John Moffitt of Connecticut — in the 2006 class, Bret Bielema’s first after taking over for Barry Alvarez.
What once was a rich recruiting area for UW under Alvarez has turned into an afterthought under Bielema.
The University of Wisconsin systemâ??s Board of Regents is considering a proposal this week that would raise the pay ranges of its university leaders and system executives to bring their salaries more in line with those of their peers, according to an article by the Associated Pres
The head of the state Assembly Colleges Committee is lashing out at a new proposal to raise the salary ranges for University of Wisconsin chancellors.
Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, says itâ??s irresponsible to consider raising the Madison chancellorâ??s salary by 66 percent.
With a new budget deficit looming, he says other state employees might be lucky to get 2 percent raises.
The UW is looking for new chancellors at Madison, Parkside and Nassâ??s hometown of Whitewater.
A plan for big pay raises for chancellors in the UW System isn’t playing well at the Capitol.
State Representative Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), who chairs the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, says increasing the pay range for the UW-Madison chancellor to nearly $450,000 is irresponsible. Nass says it’s not something the state can afford at this time, when it’s facing a possible $600 million budget shortfall.
The UW Board of Regents wants to pay top University leaders more, in order to attract higher quality candidates for open positions. But a state lawmaker says thatâ??s irresponsible given the shaky economic situation in Wisconsin. Brian Bull reports. (Audio.)
Working groups of scientists from the UW System and state agencies have joined together in a project designed to assess the potential consequences of climate change in Wisconsin.
With the University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor position up for grabs, the UW System Board of Regents will deliberate this week on a new plan to increase the salary range of several different leader positions systemwide.
How expensive is the Big Ten Network?
Thanks to BTN’s quirky pricing structure, it’s a complex question that isn’t as clear as has been stated in media reports referenced in The Capital Times last week.
BTN has received $1.10 per subscriber (and placement on basic cable) in at least some deals with providers in the Big Ten Conference states, but asks 10 cents per subscriber (and is flexible regarding placement on a higher level of service) in the rest of the country, as has been reported several times by The Capital Times.
BTN officials have repeatedly said price is a negotiable item in its so far unsuccessful efforts to reach deals with major cable companies such as Charter Communications and Time Warner. Elizabeth Conlisk, BTN vice president of communications, says its proposals to Charter and Time Warner have been well under $1.
MADISON, Wis. â?? University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s next leader could earn $42,500 to $125,000 more than Chancellor John Wiley under a plan meant to attract more candidates for the position.
The UW System Board of Regents will consider increasing the salary ranges of university chancellors and system executives during its meeting on Thursday and Friday.
Board President Mark Bradley said Monday the higher ranges are needed to attract top candidates as regents recruit new chancellors at the Madison, Parkside and Whitewater campuses
A call for a constitutional ban on affirmative action in Wisconsin. It comes from State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), who plans to introduce an amendment similar to one approved in Michigan two years ago.
Grothman says Wisconsin has had a “brazen policy” of giving preference based on race or sex for too long. He says those preferences have resulted in white males not being hired in government jobs, not getting in to the University of Wisconsin, or getting passed over for state contracts.
A â??Focus the Nation on Global Warmingâ?? conference was held at the Lowell center on campus Thursday night, with speakers encouraging greater environmental and populist action in government.
MADISON, Wis. â?? Gov. Jim Doyle wants to address a projected state budget shortfall of $400 million before it gets worse and the Legislature quits working for the year.
Since this is the first year of the two-year budget, Doyle could wait until later to deal with the problem. But the governor said Tuesday it makes sense to start dealing with it before the Legislature adjourns for the year in mid-March.
Certain areas will be protected from cuts, including the University of Wisconsin, education and health care, he said.
Two state lawmakers unveiled a proposal in Memorial Union Monday to â??freezeâ? in-state tuition costs for students who receive financial aid.
Two Madison state representatives announced a plan Monday afternoon to match financial aid dollar-for-dollar for tuition increases at UW System and state technical schools.
Rep. Spencer Black and Rep. Joe Parisi said the plan would essentially freeze tuition for students who receive financial aid.
When Cedric Larson started his undergraduate program five years ago, he figured he would be able to cover the costs with scholarships, grants and part-time employment and avoid incurring any student debt. But, by the time he graduated this past spring with a degree in English and international studies, his undergraduate tuition at the UW-Madison had skyrocketed by 69%. He had to start borrowing. His current debt load: about $10,000.
“I learned to cut corners,” he says. “I bought used books at book swaps, and I tried not to borrow any more than was necessary.
When new school superintendent Dan Nerad moves from Green Bay to Madison, his Badgers and Packers sweatshirts will fit right in, along with his jeans.
He won’t have to learn the vocabulary of revenue caps and qualified economic offers as he deals with balancing the $330 million-plus budget here. He can navigate the University of Wisconsin campus without a map.
And when he heads to the Legislature, his son Ben, a recent UW graduate and legislative aide, can show him the shortcuts through the Capitol.
Elementary school teacher Mary Thundercloud of the Ho-Chunk Nation wanted to teach on a reservation but found a need for her teaching in the Milwaukee Public Schools.
“I believe urban children need a great teacher and that I can make a difference for children of color,” said Thundercloud, who hopes to someday open a school for Ho-Chunk children.
Her desire to help those out of the mainstream has led her to teach in Milwaukee for 20 years and to participate in a new Ph.D. program at UW-Madison that aims to prepare school leaders who can close a persistent achievement gap for low-income students and racial minorities.
