Wisconsin’s Medicaid program spends an estimated $46 million a year to provide health care coverage to workers for some of the state’s largest employers, including the University of Wisconsin System, according to a report to be released today by a Madison consumer advocacy group.
David Walsh has accomplished quite a bit since graduating from UW-Madison in 1965. He served in Vietnam, graduated from Harvard Law School, received a partnership in the Foley & Lardner law firm and was even part of the ownership group that turned down a lucrative offer from North Carolina to keep the Brewers in Milwaukee.
Dear Editor: As Halloween approaches, Madison is again likely to see another demonstration of what a bad idea it would be to lower the age for legal alcohol consumption to match the legal age for military service.
Military service involves training that aims at increasing a person’s degree of responsibility for their actions – whether with weapons or among comrades. This is the exact opposite of the effect alcohol has on human behavior.
The state Senate took a first step Tuesday toward a constitutional amendment that would prevent a Wisconsin governor from making some partial vetoes.
The vote on the resolution was 23-10, with some Democrats – including Sens. Fred Risser of Madison and Mark Miller of Monona – joining Republicans in voting for adoption.
The bill will now be considered by the Assembly, which is also dominated by Republicans and is expected to approve it, because many Republicans have been upset by the changes Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle made to the state budget with his veto pen.
MONROE (AP) – A 23-year-old woman was charged Tuesday with killing an 88-year-old woman and taking about $50,000 from her.
Mary A. Sidoff of rural Monticello was charged in Green County Circuit Court with first-degree intentional homicide, hiding a corpse and theft. A $100,000 cash bond was set by Judge James Beer.
….A sheriff’s department report that accompanied the complaint said Sidoff told authorities she first met Sturzenegger in September when the elderly woman was a patient at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison and she was working as a nurse’s assistant.
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly sent a letter to UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley Monday acknowledging he has reviewed the report Wiley delivered to him late last week.
The latest Wisconsin Policy Research Institute poll tells us that Wisconsinites are rapidly losing confidence in their elected officials. In a state that once enjoyed a national reputation for clean politics, only 9 percent of those surveyed thought that the standard for ethics in state government was improving while 46 percent thought it was declining.
Even more disheartening were the answers to the question about whose interests elected officials serve. Only 6 percent of those surveyed thought that elected officials represented their interests.
The citizens of Wisconsin have reason to be concerned. Consider the growing controversy surrounding the awarding of a three-year contract – worth up to $240,000 annually – to make travel arrangements for the state.
Bioscience is one of the fastest growing industries in Wisconsin, a new report maintains, although it has a long way to go to surpass manufacturing, agriculture and tourism as the state’s top industry.
The report, Bioscience Wisconsin 2006, issued by the Wisconsin Association for Biomedical Research & Education, measures economic growth in bioscience research, development and industry in the state.
Three Madison-based, Democratic state legislators held a hearing at the Oshkosh Public Library on a bill that would require hospitals to inform rape victims about the availability emergency contraception and provide victims with the drug at their request.
Welcome, UW alumni, to homecoming 2005. While the big football game between the Badgers and Purdue is the highlight of the weekend, there’s something even bigger that needs to be cheered – the University of Wisconsin-Madison itself.
There have been few times in history when Wisconsin’s world-class university has been under such sustained attack. Its budget has been slashed, its administrators have been pilloried by opportunistic legislators, even some of its renowned research has been threatened by those who would put their unyielding religious beliefs ahead of the promises of science.
So, as you cheer on the football team today, save a little bit of breath for the alma mater. It needs all the support it can get.
Even in a veritable combat zone, deer in parts of Dane and Iowa counties stick close to home.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher said Friday that she found that deer in a region riddled with chronic wasting disease usually live in a tight home range – a smaller area than she expected.
State and industry officials are already taking steps to prevent avian influenza.
A work group focusing on preparation and planning includes representatives of the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, the Department of Health and Family Services, the Department of Natural Resources, USDA agencies, the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, the UW School of Veterinary Medicine, the State Laboratory of Hygiene and Wisconsin Emergency Management.
The campaigns of both of Gov. Jim Doyle’s potential Republican opponents in the 2006 election called Friday for the administration to rebid a state contract awarded to a travel agency whose executives donated money to his re-election campaign.
Doyle again rejected the calls to rebid the contract awarded to Glendale-based Adelman Travel Group.
Local, state and federal authorities are investigating the process for awarding the three-year contract to issue airline tickets for state employees. The probe announced Thursday will look into whether $20,000 in donations from Adelman executives played any role in the contract, which could be worth $250,000 a year.
David Walsh, president of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, announced this week the formation of a new ad hoc committee to investigate means to accelerate the UW System�s employee dismissal process.
Authorities from the federal, state and local levels announced Thursday that they will join forces to probe whether a state contract was awarded fraudulently.
The Nature Conservancy of Wisconsin has received the largest cash donation for conservation in state history from Phillips businessman and UW-Madison graduate Bob Cervenka and his wife, Debbie.
The $1 million grant pledge will be used to help purchase and preserve nearly 1,000 acres of lake frontage and wilderness along the Wisconsin-Upper Michigan border in Vilas County. Included are 500 acres of old-growth forest.
The Cervenkas are owners of Phillips Plastics Corp., one of the largest injection molders in the U.S. with annual sales of more than $216 million.
State, federal and Dane County law enforcement officials have launched a joint inquiry following media reports that Gov. Jim Doyle received $20,000 in campaign donations from executives of a travel agency around the time it won a state contract.
Doyle, a Democrat, has insisted the donations played no role in Milwaukee-based Adelman Travel Group winning the contract and reiterated it Thursday after the authorities announced their investigation. He said he had nothing to do with the selection process and the firm was picked because it was the cheapest bid, saving taxpayers money.
THE DEFENDANT in a decades-old murder with several Madison ties was bound over for trial Wednesday in Ladysmith. Cherie Barnard, 54, will stand trial for being party to the murder of Rob Pfeil, 27, who was shot to death outside his home in rural Ladysmith on Aug. 14, 1979.
The Madison connections include Barnard’s defense attorney, Chris Van Wagner, who was in Ladysmith for the preliminary hearing Wednesday and came away unimpressed with the prosecution’s case. Barnard herself is a UW-Madison Law School graduate.
(An item on Prof. Richard Davidson and the Dalai Lama is also included in Moe’s column, as is a mention of the late Professor James Graaskamp.)
U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic, with the help of the FBI, the Dane County District Attorney’s office, and the State Department of Justice, announced a joint investigation into the award of a $750,000 state contract to Milwaukee-based Adelman Travel Systems.
Federal, state and Dane County authorities have launched a joint investigation into a travel contract given to the company of a major contributor to Gov. Jim Doyle, officials said Thursday.
On the matter of Wisconsin’s own possible Travelgate, only three things can help stop the erosion of public confidence that this case is likely prompting: a thorough investigation, starting over with new bids and, ultimately, campaign finance reform.
After ranking No. 1 in her high school class and scoring a perfect 36 on her ACT, 18-year- old Suchita Shah had her pick of the college litter.
The Holmen resident narrowed it down to Harvard University and UW-Madison, before deciding that Harvard wasn’t for her.
The University of Wisconsin fell under state scrutiny once again as the Senate Higher Education and Tourism Committee held a public hearing at the Capitol Wednesday concerning the university�s employment policies.
A travel agency is now questioning why it lost a contract to sell airline tickets to state workers after reports that leaders at the winning company gave $20,000 to the governor’s campaign in the months surrounding the bidding process.
Gov. Jim Doyle and his administration have steadfastly maintained the contract was awarded to Milwaukee-based Adelman Travel Group fairly after the company’s final bid came in $30,000 cheaper.
(CALS Associate Dean Frank Kooistra, a member of the selection committee, is quoted.)
MADISON, Wis. ââ?¬â? A travel agency is now questioning why it lost a contract to sell airline tickets to state workers after reports that leaders at the winning company gave $20,000 to the governor’s campaign in the months surrounding the bidding process.
A travel agency is now questioning why it lost a contract to sell airline tickets to state workers after reports that leaders at the winning company gave $20,000 to the governor’s campaign in the months surrounding the bidding process.
Wisconsin students stayed above national averages in test results released Wednesday, but a Journal Sentinel analysis of the data shows that the gap between black and white students was among the largest in the nation. In eighth-grade reading and in fourth-grade math, the gaps were larger than in any other state in the country.
A travel agency that lost a state contract to a firm owned by a major contributor to Gov. Jim Doyle was told by state officials that the two companies had tied in the public bidding process and that’s why final, head-to-head competition was necessary, an executive of the losing firm said Wednesday.
A state audit of UW System employment practices and policies is set to delve into issues such as felons employed at UW schools and backup jobs after the Joint Legislative Audit Committee approved the scope of the study Tuesday.
After hearing testimony from University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly and Board of Regents President David Walsh, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee unanimously voted at the Capitol Tuesday to proceed with a state-run audit of UW employment practices and policies.
There’s a new “E” in E-business: Engagement.
“Time is more precious than money,” eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey told the crowd attending the 8th annual UW E-Business Institute’s E-Business Best Practices & Emerging Technologies Conference Tuesday at the Monona Terrace Convention Center.
The conference aimed to get attendees to think about how to better understand the technologies their companies use.
A legislative committee Tuesday ordered a sweeping state audit of the University of Wisconsin System’s employment policies.
The Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted 9-0 to order the state audit bureau to review how the system manages employees. The bureau will examine so-called backup positions, which are jobs some workers have waiting for them if they are demoted. It also will review sick leave policies and identify any felons on the system’s payroll.
The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau will take a top-to- bottom look at an array of employment practices within the University of Wisconsin System and issue a report next year.
The Legislature’s Joint Audit Committee voted 9-0 Tuesday to authorize the review, which state Auditor Jan Mueller said would be “large, broad-based and comprehensive.”
MADISON – A legislative committee Tuesday ordered a sweeping state audit of the University of Wisconsin System’s employment policies.
ANDY LATHROP was supposed to be back in Wisconsin by now. That was the plan. Maybe he’d have been with his parents in Menasha, or perhaps he would already have come back to Madison, to prepare for the spring semester at UW.
University of Wisconsin System officials promised Tuesday to take the first steps in December to rewrite disciplinary rules so that administrators can more quickly fire those convicted of serious crimes or to begin investigating someone accused of a crime.
Wisconsin’s projected budget balance for mid-2007 is about $55 million less than originally thought after tax collections came in slightly lower than expected, according to a new report.
The shortfall means the state has a smaller cushion should revenues or spending fail to meet expectations in the two-year budget that ends June 30, 2007. The state had projected a balance of $70.4 million at the end of the budget; the new projection is about $14 million.
27 News has uncovered a Doyle Administration official was the only member of an evaluation committee to support a Milwaukee travel agency’s bid for a state contract worth an estimated $750,000.
Milwaukee-area businessman Craig B. Adelman never gave more than $1,000 to governors or candidates for governor, until his Adelman Travel company bid on – and won – the contract to book up to 40% of all out-of-state trips by state workers.
Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed Assembly Bill 207 Friday, rejecting legislation that would allow medical professionals to refuse to perform procedures conflicting with their personal beliefs.
Working people on campus would like to thank students for passing the Living Wage Referendum during the ASM elections held Oct. 11-13. Those who worked on and voted for the referendum have struck a blow for human dignity.
In a controversial move Friday, Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed a bill known as the ââ?¬Å?Conscience Protection Act,ââ?¬Â squelching Republican efforts allowing health care workers to deny patients medical procedures due to moral or ethical views.
The key to Wisconsin developing a sustainable biotech industry is developing collaborative research and development efforts among academic institutions in the state, according to a nationally recognized economist.
Ross DeVol, director of regional economics for the Milken Institute, Santa Monica, Calif., was the keynote speaker at the Wisconsin Biotechnology & Medical Device Association’s annual conference Friday in Oconomowoc.
Colorado, home of the nation’s most restrictive limits on state spending, has become the scene of a much-watched vote that pits anti-tax forces against higher-education advocates.
Voters will decide on November 1 whether to roll back the state’s constitutionally imposed spending cap, known as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, for five years to allow lawmakers to spend an estimated $3.7-billion they otherwise would have had to refund to taxpayers.
Wisconsin’s research prowess alone – much of it rooted in University of Wisconsin-Madison laboratories – won’t be enough to move the state from its second-tier position to the top of the biotech list.
State Rep. Samantha Kerkman, R-Powers Lake, sent a letter to University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly Thursday questioning how many times the system has violated its own suspension of granting ââ?¬Å?backupââ?¬Â positions to new employees.
WisconsinEye, the nonprofit organization that aims to bring gavel-to-gavel TV coverage of the State Capitol into Wisconsin homes, is undergoing a management reshuffling as officials aim to get on the air by next year.
Tom Loftus, former Assembly speaker and U.S. ambassador to Norway, has taken over as the organization’s interim president.
Loftus succeeds WisconsinEye founder Jeff Roberts, who will remain the channel’s chief operating officer and a member of the board of directors.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? Implementation of a controversial web-based software system to manage human resources throughout the University of Wisconsin System should proceed, a report on an in-depth assessment of the project recommends.
There’s a move afoot over in the Capitol to exempt UW System researchers from an old state law that restricts public employees who start private companies from signing contracts with the university.
A state politician accused University of Wisconsin administrators Wednesday of “creating an obstacle” to the potential merger of two Milwaukee-area universities by selecting a candidate for dean of the UW-Waukesha campus.
Quoted: Donald Nichols, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor.
Mentions a research project by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, commissioned by the state, that confirmed that the fathers were more likely to make court-ordered child support if they knew it would help their kids.
After a decade of preparation, the UW Medical School is poised to become the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. Despite the concerns of UW-Milwaukee officials and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the change in name – deserved recognition of a school-wide effort to incorporate more public health initiatives – is important for all of Wisconsin.
This is the first part of a series profiling members of the Board of Regents, the governing board for the University of Wisconsin System.
Mark Bradley sat quietly at the Board of Regents meetings in Madison last week, listening intently to university administrators, deans, professors, a state senator and a mayor express their concerns about a plethora of issues facing the state�s public higher education system.
As vice president of the Board of Regents, Bradley is immersed in public education. Three of his children are enrolled in public universities and he himself benefited from a public education and a University of Wisconsin law degree.
Internal auditing of the University of Wisconsin System has been cut in recent years, a system review found, raising questions about its strength to sniff out waste and mismanagement on the state’s campuses. But a committee of the UW Board of Regents agreed Thursday that the cut was necessary.
This summer, a UW-Madison official scoffed at a 27 News investigation into former Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Paul Barrows’ months of paid sick leave.
The UW Board of Regents called sick leave abuse in the Paul Barrows case the very reason it decided to tighten sick leave rules for university employees.
The new rules mean employees can’t take more than five days of consecutive, paid sick leave without a doctor’s note.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who specializes in polling.
Local leaders must do a better job leveraging government dollars to boost development such as the fast-growing biomedical research and business cluster at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Milwaukee County Research Park, an economic development advocate said Monday.
The UW Board of Regents in November will change the name of UW Medical School to make it the official home of a new school of public health for the University of Wisconsin System, rejecting UW- Milwaukee’s bid to have the school on that campus.
UW-Milwaukee made an impassioned bid to be the site of a school of public health Thursday, while UW-Madison officials argued that it made more sense to integrate the offering within its School of Medicine and change the school’s name to reflect that growing focus.
“We have the buildings and we have the funds,” Medical School Dean Philip Farrell told the UW Board of Regents, adding later, “We have worked for a decade preparing for this.”
