Category: State news

To the many duties of state Administration Secretary Marc Marotta – promoting the policies of Gov. Jim Doyle, negotiating casino compacts with Indian tribes, trimming waste – add this: Modeling for Hewlett-Packard. Doyle’s top aide appears on the cover of the computer company’s spring “Government Solutions” catalog. Other Wisconsin agencies have appeared in similar materials for other companies. For instance, in a February case study for Microsoft, University of Wisconsin-Madison accountant Jeff Sailor touts the company’s Great Plains software.

(MADISON) A state lawmaker thinks parents and students deserve more respect from the University of Wisconsin. Heââ?¬â?¢s introduced a so-called ââ?¬Å?college studentââ?¬â?¢s bill of rightsââ?¬Â that would cover everything from when parents can meet with teachers to how heavy textbooks can be.

David Walsh has been president of the UW System Board of Regents for just a short time, but he’s already seen plenty of acrimony. He said a confluence of factors, from a bad economy to ideological rifts, have caused the difficulties.

“I’m confident everybody’s looking at the big picture and everyone believes the citizens of the state are entitled to have access to a public university — and it should be a great public university,” he told WisPolitics today

State Sen. Carol Roessler, R-Oshkosh, said she is pleased the University of Wisconsin System has temporarily suspended the practice of guaranteeing backup positions to administrators.

ââ?¬Å?It was absolutely the right action to take,ââ?¬Â she said.

Roessler and state Rep. Suzanne Jeskewitz, R-Menomonee Falls, both co-chairs of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, submitted a letter July 25 to UW System President Kevin Reilly expressing their concern about backup appointments in the universities.

People who buy kegs in La Crosse may soon have to sign and tell where the beer will be served.

The Alcohol Oversight Committee decided at its first meeting Monday to consider keg registration and an ordinance prohibiting consumption of alcoholic beverages by bartenders while on duty.

Sen. Alan Lasee, president of the Wisconsin Senate, has asked Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager for a legal opinion on the governor’s controversial partial vetoes in the state budget.

Kelly Kennedy, a spokesman for Lautenschlager, said Lasee’s request was received late Friday afternoon and that the Justice Department is still reviewing it.

After having missed a go-live date in April because of problems in project management, software testing and other areas, the University of Wisconsin is reassessing an overbudget ERP rollout that has so far cost it $25 million.

Mentions a survey of 1,499 state residents during 2004-’05 by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers found that 43% opposed the payment of public funds to reimburse for lost hunting dogs.

It’s the stuff of soap operas – an extramarital affair, allegations of handgun-waving, lawsuits in four counties, all involving two public officials and their families – except it’s playing out in real life. Includes a mention of a dispute over whether one of the participants wrote his own doctoral thesis at UW-Madison.

The University of Wisconsin (UW) is reassessing an overdue and overbudget ERP software project that has so far cost the school $25 million and missed its go-live date.

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents is certainly correct in suspending the practice of guaranteeing backup jobs to administrators in case their original assignments don’t work out. Who wouldn’t love a backup deal for his or her own job?

Just days after receiving negative publicity for appearing at a gay pride rally, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager has asked a Dane County judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking domestic partnership benefits for state of Wisconsin employees.

Republican lawmakers are questioning whether Gov. Jim Doyle exceeded his veto powers – which are already considered among the broadest in the nation – by rewriting key portions of this year’s state budget.

While the state Supreme Court has permitted governors to use the veto pen to reduce spending, strike out words and even write whole new state laws, the Republicans contend Doyle may have overstepped constitutional bounds.

The University of Wisconsin System will see $12 million more in state funding over the next two years under the final budget signed by Gov. Jim Doyle on Monday — not a cut like the last budget cycle, but certainly not enough to grow, university officials said.
“It’s not been a good budget year for the university,” System President Kevin Reilly said Monday. “I think everybody recognizes that. We were hoping for better.”

MADISON, Wis. � The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents on Tuesday ordered all UW campuses not to award backup positions to administrators until the controversial personnel policy can be reviewed.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents announced Tuesday that it would suspend temporarily the practice of guaranteeing backup jobs to administrators in the UW System.

Students from Wisconsin pay less in tuition at the University of Minnesota than students from inside the state, and a chorus of school officials, parents and legislators say that needs to change.

Wisconsin students pay less because of tuition reciprocity agreements. Wisconsin students pay about $1,000 less per year at the Minneapolis area campus; $1,600 less at the Duluth campus, and $2,400 a year less at Morris.

The student government president on the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus pays $1,000 less in annual tuition and fees than the Minnesotans she goes to school with.

It’s not that student government types get a tuition break. Emily Serafy Cox is from Wisconsin. Tuition reciprocity agreements between the two states mean students from the Badger State pay less to go to school here than Minnesotans do.

The UW System Doyle restored $34 million in spending increases sought by the University of Wisconsin System and added through vetoes $8 million in financial aid for System students.

The University of Wisconsin System was put on notice Monday that its policies for paid leaves and backup appointments could face broad scrutiny by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau.
If so, that would bring to three the number of high-level probes or reviews under way since lawmakers learned in June of the seven-month paid leave of UW-Madison administrator Paul Barrows. Already, Madison attorney and Law School professor Susan Stein- gass is investigating the matter for UW-Madison and the System, while the UW Board of Regents – the System’s governing board – plans a review during its regular meeting in September.

Gov. Jim Doyle used 139 state budget vetoes Monday to boost state spending for public schools by $861 million over the next two years and to try to keep property taxes in check for homeowners.

In an official request sent Monday, leaders of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee demanded that the University of Wisconsin System offer up detailed information about paid leaves and backup appointments granted to university administrators, saying recent media reports of such practices had given them cause for concern.

Gov. Jim Doyle on Monday struck down a bid by state legislators and Waukesha County Executive Dan Finley to merge the University of Wisconsin campuses in Waukesha and Milwaukee, arguing that the issue should be decided by the Board of Regents.

Colum on Tax Incremental Financing by Matthew Mayrl, a research associate at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a research and policy center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Outrage from lawmakers over paid leaves to former UW-Madison Vice Chancellor Paul Barrows and other top university executives has led Chancellor John Wiley to scrap a plan to give paid leave to UW-Madison Provost Peter Spear after Spear’s retirement to Arizona.

f your boss sent you an e- mail thanking you for your “hard work and dedicated service” in the past year, would you type “What a joke!” and hit reply? Or accuse the boss of being “less than sincere?”
Call it a sign of bravery, the protections of civil service or an indication of plummeting morale among state employees, but those are among the responses sent to Gov. Jim Doyle after he sent out “an open letter to state employees” last month.

Quoted: Joanne Cantor, UW-Madison professor emerita of communication arts said.

UW-Madison’s resident Watergate scandal expert vowed to fight a disorderly conduct charge filed against him Wednesday for allegedly threatening to blow up the office of his health insurance provider over a billing dispute.

UW Hospital and Clinics announces big plans for Madison’s east side.

The hospital plans to buy land for the future development of a medical services complex.

Parents are famous for asking teens who claim that all their friends are doing X whether the kids would join their friends if the friends walked off a cliff. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s answer to that question is “you bet.” The problem for UWM is that state taxpayers don’t like that answer any more than a parent would.

The NCAA plans to begin more closely monitoring betting lines on games and to start background checks on baseball and hockey officials as part of its antigambling efforts. The moves are being made after an NCAA study last year found that 35 percent of male athletes and 10 percent of female athletes had gambled on college sports during the previous year.

One response from an NCAA task force on gambling would have the organization start checking in regularly with a longtime antagonist – the Las Vegas sports books.

Gov. Jim Doyle says he still has full confidence in embattled UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley.

And the governor says he does not believe that the ongoing controversy over Wiley’s handling of the Paul Barrows case has hurt the UW’s standing with state lawmakers.

….Doyle’s comments came after he announced he will veto more than $50 million in Republican cuts to the University of Wisconsin System budget and student financial aid.

UW Hospital plans to buy 42 acres of land on Madison’s far east side for $8.9 million to accommodate expansion. The purchase of three parcels from American Family Insurance in its American Center business park over the next five years will alleviate congestion at the hospital’s main location, 600 Highland Ave. on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

The Madison City Council Tuesday night approved a zoning change that would allow the land at the northwest corner of the business park to be used for inpatient hospital services.

Legislative leaders blocked pay raises Tuesday for about 35 top officials across the University of Wisconsin System pending a report on UW personnel policies. The action was an outgrowth of news reports of five highly paid administrators getting paid leaves. Some of them sought new jobs while on the leaves.

The vote by the Joint Committee on Employment Relations was 6-0.

MADISON, Wis. � Saying he wants to keep a college education affordable, Gov. Jim Doyle pledged Tuesday to use his veto pen to return $43 million in funding to the University of Wisconsin System and student financial aid above what Republican lawmakers approved this month.