STEVENS POINT — While the state budget process is far from done, the Wisconsin Assembly’s version of the document, which calls for a $120 million cut from University of Wisconsin System campuses, is making students and administrators at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point nervous.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Green Bay student leader disappeared this weekend after a night out with friends.
Mahalia Xiong, 21, was reported missing after she didn’t return from a night of bowling and drinking at Ashwaubenon Bowling Alley.
The wildly disparate budgets crafted by the state Senate and the Assembly are more than spending plans. They’re blueprints for 2008 election campaigns, according to state party leaders.
For all of the bluster and showboating, the so-called budget deliberations by the Wisconsin State Senate and Assembly were so much ado about nothing. Both houses rubber stamped meaningless documents by partisan votes. And thus we’ve wasted little time ourselves worrying about the extraordinarily senseless, destructive and mean-spirited actions of either party in either house.
Minorities in Wisconsin are lagging behind in both length and quality of life, as racial health disparities across all life stages reflect troubling differences, a new study by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute shows.
It’s the Capitol’s version of the World Series of Poker. But it’s playing with your money.
Eight legislative leaders – four Democrats and four Republicans – will face off this week to try to decide how state government should spend $56.3 billion to $66.1 billion by mid-2009.
Budget poker now moves to the next round of betting in Madison, and eventually we’ll get to see if anyone is bluffing.
Why does there seem to be such enmity between Republican legislators and the University of Wisconsin System?
During the past several years, the University System has been subjected to budget cuts higher than many other agencies. Republicans have criticized the university central administrators for what they see as waste, and some legislators have been unhappy with what they see as overly liberal professors and speakers on campuses.
But what is at the heart of the disputes? We asked Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch that question during an editorial board session Friday.
State Representative Frank Lasee (R-Green Bay) stands behind his proposed budget cuts to the UW Law School.
Lasee says it’s simple. There are just too many lawyers. He believes taxpayers should not be subsidizing the law school to produce more lawyers to just do busy work. In fact, he says, many who graduate end up doing something else any way.
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.
….I WONDER if John Szarkowski, the noted photographer and photography curator who died over the weekend at 81, knew that one of his photos was indirectly responsible for a book that has become a cult classic.
Szarkowski, who was curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for 19 years, had deep Wisconsin ties. (In an appreciation Monday in the New York Times, Verlyn Klinkenborg began: “It’s worth remembering how much Wisconsin there was in the voice of John Szarkowski.”) A native of Ashland, Szarkowski had most recently spent a semester in 2000 teaching at UW-Madison.
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.
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. Quotes Chancellor John Wiley’s criticism of the spending plan.
But angel tax credits work. They help the state’s smallest, newest companies, not multinationals that shouldn’t get assistance. It’s shortsighted not to expand what, frankly, was a fairly meager effort to begin with.
Angel investors are a key link in the chain of capital that pulls good ideas into the real world – good ideas like those being honed in that little corner of the airport in Racine.
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.
Patrick Genn is bullish on Wisconsin’s new economy. And he’s putting money where his mouth is.
As managing director of the Middleton-based Continuum Investment Partners, Genn has been working the past two years connecting local “angel” investors with new companies in need of working capital.
Josh Oglesby and John Clay were the bluest of blue chips in a state more widely known nationally for producing cow chips than football players. As such, they were two of the most decorated and heavily recruited high school players in Wisconsin history.
….Yet, in a twist of fate and circumstance, it’s possible that neither Oglesby, by design, nor Clay, by default, may step on the field this season for the Badgers.
Investigators today continued the painstaking work of analyzing a wooded area where the probable remains of Kelly Nolan were found Monday morning.
“They’ll have a team of police officers and detectives who are literally going to be on their hands and knees, going shoulder to shoulder, going through a grassy area near the woods,” Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said today.
Coroner’s officials have yet to make a positive identification of the body found on private property off of Schneider Drive near its intersection with County MM north of Oregon. Indeed, as of this morning, police had yet to approach the body, for fear they might disturb valuable evidence in finding a suspect.
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.
In years past, the kinds of partisan differences we’re seeing in this year’s state budget debate would be resolved by spending.
Money would be found somewhere to pay for what both sides wanted most and compromise would be reached. That can’t happen in this budget. There’s no money. Hence, what is shaping up to be a bitter battle over health care.
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.
UW students will have to wait until next month to find out how much their tuition will cost during the coming academic year.
The UW System Board of Regents announced today it will delay a decision on tuition increases from next week until early August because of uncertainty surrounding the state budget.
University of Wisconsin students will have to wait until next month to find out how much their tuition will cost during the coming academic year.
The state Supreme Court decided today that the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Authority is a “political corporation” with a cap on malpractice damages far smaller than the one for other hospitals and with a much smaller window of time in which to file suit against it.
UW-Madison researchers have found that the abnormal proteins that cause chronic wasting disease in deer dramatically increase their infectious nature when bound to soil particles.
A group of scientists led by Professor Judd Aiken published a study in the current issue of the journal Public Library of Science Pathogens stating that the proteins known as prions that cause CWD and other brain wasting diseases bind tightly to a common soil mineral.
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.
A new state study reveals that limited literacy skills can affect one’s health care.
The study, conducted with the assistance of the Winnebago County Literacy Council and other state literacy organizations, found that people with limited literacy could not take full advantage of the health care system.
“They can’t understand doctor’s instructions and prescriptions and have challenges filling out medical forms,” said Paul Smith, Associate Professor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Family Medicine.
A conservative Milwaukee-based “free market” think tank recommended today that the UW-Madison should be broken off from the University of Wisconsin System, which should also be reorganized to create clearer lines of management authority.
The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute says that in the 35 years since the former University of Wisconsin and Wisconsin State University systems were merged, the result has become “an outdated, inefficient management structure.”
To better monitor state subsidies to corporations, a UW-Madison think tank is calling for a searchable database to track whether those monies actually benefit the Wisconsin economy.
Patterned after a system recently implemented in Illinois, the database would include how much companies pay in state taxes, how much business they do in the state and how much financial help they get.
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.
Quoted: Joel Rogers, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who heads the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.
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.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has won one of the largest federal grants in its history to create a center that will explore how to convert cornstalks, wood chips, grass and other plant material into fuel for cars and power plants.
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.
UW-Madison will build a $100 million facility to support a new federal research center for developing alternative fuel sources, with half of the money coming from state taxpayers, officials said Tuesday.
The school will also spend another $4 million to hire eight faculty members affiliated with the center.
Corn is king of biofuel — for now.
But a $50-million federal grant to Michigan State University aims to dethrone the kernel and turn tall grasses, trees and other growing things into cheap fuel to power vehicles, possibly within a decade.
Elated MSU officials and Gov. Jennifer Granholm predict the research will spawn thousands of Michigan jobs and put the university at the center of a national effort to wean the country from foreign oil, and oil in general.
“Maybe tomorrow we don’t lower the price of gas, but, over the long haul, you better believe it will,” said Granholm at a news conference at MSU’s grass research center. “And it will make us less dependent on oil in the Middle East.”
WASHINGTON â?? New research centers in Wisconsin, Tennessee and California will try to develop new ways of turning switchgrass, poplar trees and other plants into fuel under a $375 million plan.
The three centers, partnering with universities, national laboratories and private companies, will each receive $125 million to research new biofuel technologies over five years. The centers will be located in Madison, plus Oak Ridge, Tenn., and near Berkeley, Calif., the Energy Department said Tuesday.
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.”
UW-Madison has won a major federal Department of Energy grant worth $125 million to build a Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center to develop cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. The five-year grant is the largest single research award the university has ever received.
Gov. Jim Doyle yesterday said he’ll ask the Legislature to chip in another $50 million for the project, plus another $4 million for new faculty and staff at the center. In addition, he said the university will seek to raise $50 million from private sources for the project.
Molly Jahn, dean of the UW-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said the center will be built at one of three sites the Madison campus. She said it will focus on developing energy resources from non-food resources such as cornstalks, wood chips, paper waste and perennial native grasses.
A local company sees energy potential in our backyard.
Millions in federal funding will bring a center for biofuel research to UW Madison.
Supporters of a bioenergy research facility coming to Madison say a safer, more environmentally friendly source of fuel is in our future.
That source of fuel is, of course, plants. We already use corn to make ethanol, but the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center will take biofuels a step further.
“This basically what we’re looking at converting to alcohol,” Phil Brumm says.
It’s being called a big win for UW-Madison. It is one of three universities chosen to spearhead bioenergy research. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded the Madison campus $125 million over five years for research.
The goal of the center is to find ways to convert plant biomass, from things like cornstalks and woodchips, to sources of energy to power anything from cars to electrical power plants.
MADISON, Wis. — Madison will be home to a major new bioenergy research center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The department announced Tuesday it had awarded University of Wisconsin-Madison and a partnership of other universities and labs a $125 million grant to start the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.
The federal facility will be built in Madison as part of a new alternate fuel initiative being organized by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University. Both universities will help run the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.
Several universities will be major partners in three new research centers on bioenergy, the U.S. Department of Energy announced on Tuesday. The centers, which involve researchers from a total of 18 universities, along with seven national laboratories and several corporate partners, will each receive $125-million over five years to study new techniques for producing ethanol and other biofuels.
The University of Wisconsin at Madison will lead one of the centers, with the State of Wisconsin providing an additional $54-million for a new building and new faculty positions. Michigan State University, which will receive about $50-million of the federal grant, will be a major collaborator in the Wisconsin center. Other academic partners will be Illinois State University, Iowa State University, and the University of Florida.
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.
