Category: State news

With the passage of Wisconsinâ??s state budget last week, the University of Wisconsin System is looking forward to growth and expansion throughout the next two years.

MADISON â?? The University of Wisconsin System is about to get bigger.

More researchers at UW-Milwaukee. More adult students in the two-year UW Colleges. And more undergrads at UW-Green Bay and UW-Oshkosh.

The state budget signed into law last week allows UW campuses to begin expansions intended to increase the number of graduates and boost economic development. UW System President Kevin Reilly had campaigned for more than a year for the so-called Growth Agenda, which he called critical to the state’s economic future.

MADISON â?? A University of Wisconsin System regent has quit because he’s upset over how the governor has treated illegal immigrants.

Jesus Salas sent his resignation letter Friday morning as Gov. Jim Doyle signed the new two-year state budget.

Salas accused Doyle in his letter of not fighting hard enough for a budget provision that would have allowed illegal immigrants who graduate from Wisconsin high schools to pay in-state tuition.

More than three months behind schedule, Gov. Jim Doyle signed the second-latest budget in state history today in a ceremony at the Memorial Union.

In part because of his active involvement in negotiating the final budget deal, Doyle used his veto pen the most sparingly of any governor in more than 35 years — only 33 times in the 1,500-plus-page budget bill.

After countless hours of negotiations over taxes, education funding and health care, the Wisconsin state Legislature finally came to an agreement late Tuesday night, approving a budget that increases spending by $763.3 million dollars, which will affect the city and University of Wisconsin in many areas.

….For more than a decade, the Wisconsin Republican Party has pursued an anti-education campaign, starving one of the best public school systems in the country through revenue caps and making the great University of Wisconsin dead last among its peers in faculty salaries.

The latter has resulted in a tripling of outside offers to top UW faculty over the past three years and a halving of retention rates. As many of the state’s top researchers and intellectual entrepreneurs leave Madison, the UW, the city and the state will be much poorer.

Madison may, for the first time in 22 months, have a city treasurer before Christmas if Mayor Dave Cieslewicz gets his way.

Dipping into Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration for the second time this month to fill a city position, Cieslewicz named Gerald Pacer, currently Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Revenue, as city treasurer Wednesday.

MADISON, Wis. — The state Senate and Assembly approved a budget Tuesday night, and it has been sent to the governor’s desk.

In the Assembly it faced some opposition but eventually passed on a bipartisan vote of 60-39, with 23 Republicans voting to pass the bill and 10 Democrats voting against it.

In the Senate, the vote was strictly along party lines, passing 18-15 with all the Democrats voting for it and all the Republicans against.

A day after passing one of the state’s hardest-fought budget bills, Senate Democrats today ousted their leader, Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson of Beloit, who helped negotiate the final deal, and replaced her with veteran Sen. Russ Decker of Schofield.

The news came when Decker, the co-chairman of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, emerged from a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats that lasted for about three hours.

The state Legislature passed the 2007-2009 budget Tuesday evening, 115 days after it was supposed to be passed and only needs approval by Gov. Jim Doyle to become law.

The vote in the Republican-controlled Assembly was 60 to 39, with 23 Republicans and 37 Democrats voting in favor. In the Democrat-controlled state Senate, the vote was 18 to 15 on party lines.

University of Wisconsin regents, deans and financial aid officers are relieved the Legislature finalized a state budget Tuesday, but also say its waiting process caused months of stress and falls millions of dollars short of the requested funding.

The 2007-09 state budget passed through the Legislature Tuesday night, after more than 100 days of partisan feuding.

Madison, Wis. – Every state budget debate produces winners and losers among the politicians – Democrat and Republican, executive and legislative. It’s just as certain that some policies prevail over others, and some stakeholders fare better than others.

Winner: The University of Wisconsin System. The folks in Van Hise Hall didn’t get everything they wanted, but it was more than half a loaf. The budget included $32 million in new financial aid and backs the system’s plan to increase enrollment, which should improve access to higher education in Wisconsin at a time when the â??knowledge economyâ? needs more skilled workers. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s $8.4 million engineering campus also survived the budget negotiations.

The University of Wisconsin System was facing a serious funding shortage just a week ago, when it seemed as if the state would never have a budget. Officials had been talking about tuition surcharges, students being left without financial aid, and the possibility of campuses shutting down for the spring semester.

However, a deal expected to gain approval from lawmakers today has many UW officials breathing a sigh of relief. Spokesman Dave Giroux says the simple fact of having a budget allows them to set aside all of the contingency plans that had been in the works because of a projected $150 million shortfall.

The University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Public Broadcasting, and the city of Madison are all big winners in the final state budget package that comes up for approval by state lawmakers today.

Each of those entities had been targeted for major cuts by Assembly Republicans, but their funds were restored as part of the negotiations between Senate Democrats, Assembly Republicans, and Gov. Jim Doyle.

Assembly Republicans had targeted the University of Wisconsin for more than $95 million in cuts; all but $25 million of that amount has been restored.

The newest version of the 2007-09 state budget passed through the conference committee 7-1 late Monday afternoon.

After threats of escalating tuition costs and drastic cuts in course availability, members on the state of Wisconsin Budget Conference Committee agreed on a budget that University of Wisconsin officials said is sufficient.

With the state budget finally wrapping up, Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, needs to jump-start a legislative committee to oversee state computer issues.
The committee has not met in years — even though an audit six months ago recommended reviving it.

The brokers seeking to solve the state’s budget problems have found one major point of agreement â?? push many of them into the next budget.

The 2007-09 budget agreement approved by a legislative committee Monday would leave a potential shortfall of $892 million in the 2009-11 budget, according to the Legislature’s budget office. The budget, which is 114 days late as of this morning, is expected to be voted on and approved today by the full Legislature.

MADISON, Wis. â?? The property tax bill for the typical Wisconsin home would rise $98 over the next two years under the long overdue budget plan that moved toward completion Monday.

A median-valued home of $170,305 would see its bill go up an average of $80 during the budget year that ends June 30, 2008, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The 2.9 percent increase would make the bill $2,814, the agency says.

….The theater-of-the-absurd character of the budget debate has caused most Wisconsinites to lose interest in the details of a document so long delayed that the average citizen’s response has been to scream: “Just finish it!”

Now that the final resolution is within reach, however, it is necessary to ask the fundamental questions:
1. Is this a worthy budget for Wisconsin?
2. If so, should legislators vote to approve it this week?

The answer to both questions is “yes,” but just barely.

After more than three months of delay and countless hours of closed-door negotiations, Gov. Jim Doyle and legislative leaders announced Friday they have a final deal on a new state budget.

“For the first time in a long time, Wisconsin has a budget,” said Doyle, who was flanked by top Democratic and Republican leaders during a press conference Friday night.

Linking education closely to industry can be a key component of economic development, as places such as Madison and Ireland have shown. The Waukesha County Higher Education Coalition recently launched an effort to create a closer link by conducting a survey of some businesses in the county on what education and skills they require. Now, Racine County has made that link an element of a newly launched countywide study on work force issues.

MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Jim Doyle and legislative leaders said Friday they’ve reached a budget agreement after a nearly four-month impasse — the longest in the nation.

The budget will raise cigarette taxes by $1 per pack but it doesn’t include proposed taxes on hospitals and oil companies.

The deal also includes plans to make all children and thousands more low-income adults eligible for state-subsidized health insurance and to spend $30 million in smoking prevention programs.

With the Republican-controlled state Assembly rejecting Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s amended budget in a special session Monday, University of Wisconsin System representatives are still unsure of what the stateâ??s future will hold.

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle said the state may experience a partial government shutdown in the wake of the Wisconsin Legislatureâ??s failure to pass a budget in a special session Monday night.

While Capitol leaders took a break from talks on the overdue budget Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle warned he might order a “partial shutdown” of non-emergency state services by the end of the year if lawmakers don’t adopt a new spending plan soon.

The failure of Gov. Jim Doyle’s second budget proposal in the state Assembly Monday isn’t the end of the world, as Democrats seem to argue. But it’s wrong to take such a cavalier approach to the budget process, as so many Republicans have done over these past 108 days.

State agencies will be paying off a questionable computer project for the next 20 years, according to a report by the state’s top computer official. That’s in spite of the fact the project was originally supposed to save the state millions of dollars over just a few years.