Category: State news

Lawmakers seeking reform of Wisconsin’s higher education system hope to reach out to Minnesota in a first-of-its-kind interstate alliance aimed at improving service and efficiency.

Parts of Wisconsin’s Capitol go on sale Saturday. SWAP — Surplus With A Purpose — sold surplus fixtures from the state Capitol.

Father Robert A. Wild, president of Marquette University, used a Vietnam War reference on Wednesday to explain what went wrong when the Board of Trustees adopted Gold as the new school nickname, only to face a torrent of criticism.

Wisconsin will sell away scraps of its history this weekend. This Saturday morning, people can purchase 90-year-old doors, light fixtures, exit signs and woodwork.

All used to grace the Capitol until the decade-long restoration which ended in 2003. The sale will run from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the University of Wisconsin SWAP (Surplus with a Purpose) building, 2102 Wright Street.

After a year of haggling, Republican leaders of the state Legislature and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle are in the heat of agreement over raising the state’s minimum wage.

The end result will look like this: Beginning June 1, the minimum will increase from $5.15 an hour to $5.70, then rise to $6.50 an hour on June 1, 2006.� Madison, which� approved a higher increase, will have to abide by the new statewide limits, a condition insisted upon by Republicans.

If these doors could talk, think of the stories they would tell.

Maybe the leather-covered oak door swung back and forth as politicians brokered backroom deals. Perhaps the oval window looked down on lawyers arguing before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Pieces from the state Capitol, from transom window frames to quarter-sawn oak trim, will be sold beginning Saturday at the UW-Madison SWAP Shop. Some items already have been offered in the shop’s online auction.

Campaign contributions can’t fix the University of Wisconsin’s credibility problem, said the chairman of a legislative higher education panel.

….Rep. Robin Kreibich, R-Eau Claire, pointed to a state audit released last week that revealed the UW System provides $700-a-month automobile stipends to its chancellors. That’s a lot of money, Kreibich said. The audit shows the UW still is unaware of its greatest liability, he said.

“Their problems go much deeper than political involvement. There’s no amount of contributions that will spare them the wrath of the Legislature when it comes to incidents like this,” said Kreibich, who is chairman of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities.

MADISON, Wis. � At least 18 University of Wisconsin-Madison administrators donated money to state candidates before the 2004 election in an effort to improve relations between the school and lawmakers, according to a newspaper report Friday.

MADISON, Wis. — Three-thousand University of Wisconsin-Madison teaching assistants have filed a formal complaint against the state.

Educators, administrators and simple logic have been telling us for some time that years of zero growth in instructor pay would come back to haunt the University of Wisconsin System. Now, studies are adding facts and figures to that argument. A recent study by the American Association of University Professors found that salaries at American colleges and universities increased by an average of 2.1 percent in the 2003-04 school year and 2.8 percent in the 2004-05 year. During the same time period, UW salaries essentially didn’t increase at all as the Legislature made broad cuts to the System to offset mounting state budget deficits.

Auditors also discovered that 16 top University of Wisconsin officials are receiving $700 a month to pay for their cars while also being reimbursed for their mileage at the same rate as other state employees. Last year, then UW System President Katharine Lyall ordered the system’s chancellors to give back their state-owned cars in exchange for the stipend. Trouble is the decision was made without consulting the Board of Regents, a point that legitimately bothered some lawmakers.

Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said Friday that she is looking into whether a $700 monthly vehicle stipend for University of Wisconsin chancellors violated a 2003 settlement with the Board of Regents to make public deliberations over chancellor pay.

Wisconsin’s public universities will be forced to cut campus security and services for rape victims if the state Legislature doesn’t give them more money. That’s the message in a letter the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will drop on the Legislature’s doorstep next week.

University of Wisconsin System regents are considering joining a coalition of Midwestern states in offering discount tuition to out-of-state residents who enroll at participating public universities.

The Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau reported Wednesday that the state�s vehicle fleet has decreased significantly under Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle�s Administration.

Evan Zimmerman’s murder conviction was thrown out and the charges in his retrial were dropped with the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the UW Law School, yet he might never know the peace of being exonerated.

Sixteen top University of Wisconsin officials are receiving $700 a month to pay for their cars, while being reimbursed for their actual mileage at the same rate as other state employees, an audit released Wednesday shows.

Both major Wisconsin public employee retirement accounts are down from where they were in January, an annuity conference was told Tuesday.

The “fixed” account is down 1.75 percent since Jan. 1, and the “variable” account is down 3.8 percent, according to State Investment Board director David Mills.

“The markets have not been good for us,” said Mills. “We’ve got a hole to dig out of.”

The latest fund-raiser for Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, accurately illustrates what is so wrong with Wisconsin’s campaign laws.

On Thursday, Kanavas raised campaign money with an event at the Madison Club, a block from the Capitol. His invitation promoted the appearance of UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley.

University of Wisconsin Chancellor John Wiley attended a fund-raiser hosted by state Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, Thursday night in an appearance that is drawing heat from one of the state�s major campaign finance watchdog groups.

The UW’s Wisconsin Innocence Project picked up another big victory last week…in the acquittal of Evan Zimmerman…but the work continues for law school professors and students.

Several state lawmakers are rallying around a plan to make the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha part of a four-year university – and to include another upstate campus in the experiment.

In a stunning move in the middle of a retrial, prosecutors Friday dropped homicide charges against a man who previously had been convicted of strangling his former girlfriend and sentenced to life in prison. It marks another victory for the UW Law School’s Wisconsin Innocence Project.

State tax and fee collections rose 1.4% over the past five years, ranking Wisconsin fifth-lowest in tax growth among the states, new figures show. Also quotes UW-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky.

Spokesperson for John Wiley says Chancellor does not view his listing as featured guest on lawmaker’s fundraising invitation as a political endorsement

A $100 per person Madison campaign fundraising event on behalf of Brookfield Republican State Senator Ted Kanavas featured invitations which highlighted UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley as an event guest.

Ã? A Republican state senator’s campaign used the name of UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley to promote a political fundraiser Thursday night, a decision the lawmaker later said was a mistake.

Invitations to the fundraiser for Sen. Ted Kanavas, R- Brookfield, listed 29 people planning to attend, among them some of the biggest names in Madison’s business and political community.

The state of Wisconsin, in an effort to regain authority over food service delegation and spending, is planning to propose a reevaluation of the current vendor system used across the state, including on the University of Wisconsin campus.

“….Assembly Bill 361 would raise the minimum retirement age to 59 from age 55.

“Don’t bother negotiating contracts, refuse to provide wage increases commensurate with inflation, and rub that mixture in the faces of municipal employees by telling them that they have to take it for an extra 4 years….”

Don Chatfield, Madison