Category: State news

MADISON, Wis. â?? A lawmaker who persuaded the Assembly to eliminate all state funding for the University of Wisconsin law school says his reasoning is simple: Thereâ??s too many lawyers in Wisconsin.

â??We donâ??t need more ambulance chasers. We donâ??t need frivolous lawsuits. And we donâ??t need attorneys making peopleâ??s lives miserable when they go to family court for divorces,â? said Rep. Frank Lasee, R-Green Bay. â??And I think that having too many attorneys leads to all those bad results.â?

Under the republican version of a state budget passed last night, the University System would take a hit of at least ninety six-million dollars.

UW System spokesman David Giroux says the university is at the stage that any cut would impact students and if the Assembly budget cuts became law the  impact would be huge.

Giroux says it would affect nearly every element of campus life from academics to paying the utility bills to hiring campus police to keep students and staff safe. Not to mention the ability to attract high quality professors.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos E. Santiago said the Assembly proposal would “severely” impair the ability to expand the campus and transform UWM into an economic engine for the region.

“At a time when the state should be investing in our efforts to build a competitive advantage in engineering and the sciences, the Assembly budget would begin dismantling the infrastructure required to support our economic development initiative,” Santiago said.

With vastly different versions of the state budget coming out of the Assembly and Senate, Republicans and Democrats will now head to a conference committee. As legislative leaders get set to begin that process, Governor Jim Doyle says he wants a budget soon, maybe even by August 1st.

The Republican-controlled Assembly this week passed a budget that cut many programs the Governor and Senate had proposed. Instead, Doyle says the GOP inserted controversial policy issues. He says they may have to re-fight all the battles Republicans have lost over the past five years just to pass the budget.

Nearly $10 billion — that’s the likely difference in spending and taxes between a version of the state budget passed by Senate Democrats last month and one that Assembly Republicans have pledged to pass today.

That figure released Monday by the Legislature’s budget office, equal to about one-sixth the total state budget and likely the largest gap ever between such proposals, underscored the “great chasm” that separates the leaders from the two parties that control the two houses of the state Legislature.

The Republican-run Assembly passed a budget late Tuesday that avoids tax increases by funding education, the University of Wisconsin System and local governments with much less than what Democratic legislators insist is needed to protect programs for two years.

Mentions the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

MADISON â?? A budget proposal that rejects tax increases but that critics argued would be devastating for education and health care cleared the Assembly on a partisan vote Tuesday.

Because it is not identical to the budget Democrats passed last month in the Senate, a special eight-member bipartisan committee will meet â?? perhaps as early as next week â?? to negotiate a compromise.

MADISON, Wis. â?? Now that 128 state lawmakers have voted on the state budget, eight of them will get to work on the version that will actually become law.

On a partisan vote the Assembly on Tuesday passed the Republican plan, over objections from Democrats that its spending cuts would devastate education, health care and the environment.

The Republican-led Assembly budget would cut the University of Wisconsin System by more than $100 million over the next two years and trim $10 million from payments to the city of Madison, according to an analysis by the state fiscal bureau released Monday.

The Republican plan would fund the University of Wisconsin System by $96 million less over two years than what Democrats sought. The plan would limit UW tuition increases to 4% a year through the 2010-’11 school year.

MADISON, Wis. â?? A Republican budget proposal that rejects Democratic-backed tax increases relies on deep cuts to education and state government operation in order to balance.

More a wish list than anything that likely will become law, the budget released Monday to be debated on Tuesday would cut the University of Wisconsin System by more than $100 million, reduce funding for public schools by at least $85 million and require state employees to pay more for health insurance.

Assembly Minority Leader Jim Kreuser (D-Kenosha) says it’s pretty clear why Republicans kept their budget plan under wraps until Monday. He says it’s just not something that provides a bright future for Wisconsin.

MADISON, Wis. â?? University of Wisconsin System students will have to wait until next month to find out how much their tuition for the coming academic year will cost.The UW System Board of Regents anno

After nearly eight years of preparations, the all-government digital cable channel WisconsinEye is set to go live on Tuesday.

The network, which will be carried on Time Warner and Charter digital cable channels reaching about 500,000 homes statewide, will carry live coverage of the state Assembly’s floor debate on the state budget. The debate is scheduled to start at noon, but legislative sessions are often plagued with delays.

Students at UW schools will have to wait until next month to find out what their tuition will be this fall.

With the state budget still undecided, UW System spokesman Dave Giroux says the Board of Regents will wait until August to set tuition rates for the fall semester. That’s because the Regents don’t feel they have enough information about the budget at this time to determine their operating costs for the coming year.

A new report suggests changed are needed in how the UW System is managed.

The study conducted by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank, examined the UW System over the past 35 years. Coordinator Tom Fletemeyer says an outdated administration is preventing the System from reaching its full potential, largely because the UW has become too decentralized in its management. As a result, issues are difficult to address because too many people are involved.

(UNDATED) Thirty-five years after being formed, the stateâ??s University system is being charged with having an â??outdated, inefficient management structure,â? and a new report calls for reform.

The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has issued the 27-page report, titled, â??Renewing the University of Wisconsin System: Creating the Capacity to Manage and Compete.â? Independent researcher Tom Fletemeyer says the report is not meant to be critical for the sake of being critical, but rather to look at ways the University can be strengthened. He says there were several incidents that prompted the report, including charges of staff-faculty personnel problems, inappropriate spending, fabricated research, an audit that showed 40 felons employed within the system, and a failed multi-million dollar software project. He says number of those sorts of things raise questions about whether there were deeper management problems. Fletemeyer says any sign that thatâ??s the case gives rise to a lot of concern, simply because the University is so important to the state.

Cecelia Klingele decided the University of Wisconsin Law School was for her when she saw a diaper-changing table in the women’s bathroom.

That decision — along with a lot of help from her husband, her in-laws and fellow students who are also parents — allowed the mother of five to achieve a record that earned her the honor of being chosen as a law clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the first UW Law School graduate in more than 65 years to earn the honor.

No matter where you spend your free time, one book worth owning is “The Vegetation of Wisconsin” by John T. Curtis, a University of Wisconsin botanist who died 46 years ago this weekend â?? July 7, 1961, to be exact.

Curtis compiled incredible amounts of information about our native plants and plant communities in his brief career and relatively short age. Fortunately for us, he understood the value of documenting and cataloging his observations so those who follow might benefit from his labors.

With the recent Senate passage of the state budget, a proposal to extend health benefits to the domestic partners of all state employees has gone further than it ever has before.

It’s also the most comprehensive proposal to date, covering all state employees — not just University of Wisconsin System staff — and municipal employees.

And while it’s unlikely that Assembly Republicans, who have opposed domestic partner benefits in the past, will include it in their version of the budget, it may well be a negotiating point in the down-and-dirty work of the conference committee, which is charged with reconciling the Assembly and Senate versions of the budget.

In the fourth of our yearlong series of round-table discussions, we asked leaders in higher education to come together to discuss how their institutions can affect the quality of life regionally. These are excerpts from their hour-long conversation with members of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board.

It’s now a truism: The shift to a knowledge economy is making college more vital than ever. But are Wisconsin’s institutions of higher learning fully aligned with this brave new age? Quoted is UW-Madison Chancellor John D. Wiley.

Veteran Madison trial attorney John Markson was named by Gov. Jim Doyle today to the Dane County Circuit Court bench, replacing the retired Judge Robert DeChambeau.
….Markson is a highly regarded civil law attorney who has handled a wide range of cases including medical malpractice and personal injury defense work. He graduated with honors in political science from the University of Wisconsin in 1975 and from the UW Law School in 1978.

MADISON â?? Low-income students in the University of Wisconsin System applying for a popular financial aid program this fall will be put on a waiting list for the aid due to uncertainty surrounding the state budget, officials said Tuesday.

The Higher Educational Aids Board is imposing the waiting list for applicants starting Wednesday. The agency says it is running out of money for the Wisconsin Higher Education Grant program, which gives grants of up to $2,730 per year to thousands of students.

The Senate passed budget includes a major health care restructuring. Senate Minority Leader, Republican Scott Fitzgerald, hoped Democrats know what they’re doing. Fitzgerald said there’s no going back, if the Democrats’ “Healthy Wisconsin” plan becomes law — and fails. He even suggested they ask the governor to veto it. The author, Senator Jon Erpenbach, said “Healthy Wisconsin” will be the best plan in the nation. Fitzgerald said the overall Senate budget proves the Democrats are “the party of the tax increase.”

The Senate passed the state budget onto the Assembly Tuesday night. The 18 to 15 vote went right down party lines. The Senate passed the state budget which included the Democrat touted universal health care plan. Also included covering autism treatments for children. The cigarette tax would increase by a dollar-25. Plus, Democrats added domestic partner benefits.

The UW is the only big ten university who cannot offer domestic partner benefits. Democrats say it hurts the university’s chances of hiring top employees. Republicans argue it’s just a political statement throwing the state into economic disaster.

Hereâ??s some good news for 25,000 college students and their parents in Wisconsin and Minnesota: A deal under which they can continue to attend either stateâ??s public colleges and pay in-state tuition has been reached.

Students in Wisconsin and Minnesota have been able to attend public colleges in either state for the past 40 years. Under a tuition reciprocity agreement, the students pay their own in-state tuition rate to attend in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

A forty year tradition between Wisconsin and Minnesota will remain intact.

A joint announcement from St. Paul and Madison today that will impact college students from both states. Wisconsin and Minnesota reach an agreement on tuition reciprocity.

Carla Vigue, spokesperson for Governor Doyle, says the agreement means Wisconsin residents wishing to attend a public college in Minnesota can do so and still pay the lower Wisconsin in-state tuition fee.

Dear Editor: Joel McNally’s recent column, “Down is up as Grothman fixes’ affirmative action,” addressed important issues about the diversity of university students in the state of Wisconsin. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, we are doing better than was reported but still not good enough for the future of Wisconsin.