Category: State news

MILWAUKEE – For what it’s worth, members of the UW Board of Regents on Thursday vowed to hammer state lawmakers over the next few weeks about finding more financial aid for needy students.

…The repugnant discrimination represented by the state’s “reserving benefits” for (presumably) straight, married employees is the “real issue.”

An Arizona-based Christian group that provides legal help to fight same-sex marriage and similar causes asked Wednesday that the Wisconsin Legislature be made a co-defendant in a lawsuit seeking benefits for gay partners of state workers.

Six lesbian workers in the University of Wisconsin System and the Corrections and Transportation departments filed the lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court in April. The American Civil Liberties Union is backing them.

MADISON (AP) – Saying access to birth control is under attack, Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill Tuesday that would allow the state to sanction any pharmacist who refuses to dispense legal forms of contraception.
Democrats say the measure, which would define birth control as all forms approved by federal regulators, including the morning-after pill, is needed in the face of Republican proposals to chip away a woman’s right to contraception.

MADISON (AP) – Saying access to birth control is under attack, Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill Tuesday that would allow the state to sanction any pharmacist who refuses to dispense legal forms of contraception.
Democrats say the measure, which would define birth control as all forms approved by federal regulators, including the morning-after pill, is needed in the face of Republican proposals to chip away a woman’s right to contraception.

orty years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared married couples could legally obtain contraceptives, a woman’s right to birth control is again under threat, several Democratic lawmakers and women’s advocates say.

The group plans to announce legislation today that would require pharmacists to fill any FDA-approved birth- control medications prescribed by a doctor. The measure also would clarify the definition of abortion in state statutes to exclude birth-control pills and devices.

At a time when there is broad recognition that universities can be the engine that drives communities to higher economic gains, the Joint Finance Committee cut $11 million that was to create 120 faculty positions and added $25 million to the $65 million in cuts already proposed in Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget, though it did leave in $2.5 million to bolster salaries of high-achiever faculty members in danger of being hired away.

This makes no sense. The state has a $1.6 billion budget deficit in large part because the Wisconsin economy has not gained steam and produced expected tax revenue. So the committee’s response is to further lessen its investment in one of the best instruments available to produce more college graduates to energize the economy and pay higher taxes.

MADISON, Wis. ââ?¬â? The state’s refusal to grant domestic partner benefits to its employees does not violate the Wisconsin Constitution, the attorney general argued in urging a Dane County judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging the decision.

Republicans who control the Legislature often say that government should run more like a business.
They’re right.

Yet when it comes to the University of Wisconsin System – a powerhouse for the state’s economy – some of the same lawmakers want to quibble over the perks of top executives and, as of last week, virtually freeze state spending on higher education.

The state’s labor department plans to lay off 11 permanent workers and offer them the chance to stay as limited term employees (LTE) without benefits.

That’s a sharp change from the past practice of laying off limited-term employees first, and union officials don’t think it’s a very good idea, to put it mildly. They contend that this is simply a way of meeting Gov. Jim Doyle’s campaign promise to cut 10,000 state employees in eight years, because permanent employees count as state workers but LTEs do not.

The union leaders also allege that the new procedure threatens the state’s civil service system.

Budget crunchers in the University of Wisconsin System are facing the classic homeowner’s dilemma: their income for the year is going up a little, while their household expenses go up a lot.

A proposal approved by the Legislature�s Joint Finance Committee earlier this week would reduce state aid for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay by about $550,000 in the next two years and could result in larger class sizes and fewer new teaching positions at the university.

Most Army officers commissioned each year come from college campuses across the country, not from fabled West Point.

That’s why it’s important to ROTC officials that the University of Wisconsin-Stout offer the program now found at four other public universities and one private college in the state.

Governor Jim Doyle has slammed Joint Finance Committee cuts, to his proposed UW System budget. Doyle said his budget eliminated 200 UW System administrative positions over the next two years, and used the savings to hire 120 new instructional staff. (Audio.)

WAUKESHA – The University of Wisconsin-Waukesha campus has taken a giant step toward Milwaukee.

By an 11-5 vote Wednesday evening, the state Legislature�s Joint Finance Committee inserted into the biennial budget language that would automatically make the Waukesha campus a part of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee by July 1, 2007.

One day after a key legislative panel approved merging college campuses in Milwaukee and Waukesha, the University of Wisconsin System’s top administrator said Thursday that he opposes a major element of the plan.

(MADISON) Republican lawmakers Wednesday chopped more than 45 million dollars from Governor Jim Doyle�s spending plan for the University of Wisconsin. If approved, the moves would mark the third budget in a row the UW has taken cuts in state funding. (Second item.)

DNA evidence from the 1991 murders of two elderly sisters in Kewaunee County does not match the DNA of the woman convicted of the slayings, lawyers in the case said Wednesday. The new test results could signal another victory for the UW Law School’s Wisconsin Innocence Project, which is seeking a retrial for Beth LaBatte, who is serving a life sentence for the murders of Ann and Ceil Cadigan.

The Legislature’s budget-writing panel Wednesday voted to cut more than $45 million from the University of Wisconsin System and student aid spending plans that were proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle, reducing suggested increases in aid and rejecting a cap on tuition increases.

The Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee, continuing its revisions to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget bill, voted on a host of changes to funding for the University of Wisconsin System on Wednesday. Here are highlights from those votes.

UW System officials would already have to eliminate $65 million under Governor Doyle’s budget proposal…and that number could climb by another $25 million. The legislature’s joint finance committee approved the extra cuts yesterday…and panel co-chair Scott Fitzgerald calls it “manageable.” (Second item)

Wisconsin higher education and even economic development could be threatened if Republicans in the Legislature follow through with threats for additional cuts to the University of Wisconsin System.

UW campuses already have borne the brunt of budget cuts in the past few years that have been even more severe than other parts of state government.

Thanks for Susan Lampert Smith’s Thursday column about domestic partner benefits. It elevated and explained not only the personal/emotional issues but also the statistics about enrollment rates and costs at other universities. I’ve been working on this issue for many years in my spare time and, as a UW employee with a domestic partner, I’m happy to see the facts finally getting out there.

SUPERIOR – At one time, Toby Marcovich figured his University of Wisconsin law degree might take him far from his family’s furniture shop, far from the iron ore shippers, to more sophisticated locales.

State lawmakers will propose deeper spending cuts and a cap on tuition when the Legislature’s budget committee takes up the University of Wisconsin System’s budget next week, several committee members confirmed Friday.

The committee’s majority Republicans remain divided, however, over how deep those cuts will be and how much tuition will be allowed to increase, with negotiations continuing this weekend.

Gov. Jim Doyle has appointed to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents a former Green Bay School Board member with ties to Madison and a retired Milwaukee area lawyer.

Four new power plants costing more than $900 million will be online this summer to address Wisconsin’s growing appetite for electricity.

The first of the new plants, Madison Gas & Electric Co.’s 150-megawatt facility on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, began generating power in late April, utility spokesman Steve Kraus said.

MADISON � When an audit showed University of Wisconsin System chancellors received a $700 monthly car stipend, outraged lawmakers called on system administrators to explain the policy.

Instead of apologizing for what lawmakers called an abuse of taxpayer dollars, UW System officials defended the payments and pleaded for more money to keep their executive compensation competitive.