Category: State news

The reciprocity agreement between Minnesota and Wisconsin might change in the future, Minnesota officials said. A bill in the Minnesota Legislature would create a new agreement so students from Wisconsin would pay the same tuition as Minnesota residents. Wisconsin students pay approximately $1,100 less than Minnesota residents, according to January�s Minnesota tuition reciprocity update.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley says he doesn’t believe state lawmakers when they cite financial reasons as the cause for denying domestic partner benefits.

The state government removed a total of $26.5 million from the UW System’s Auxiliary Funds during the 2004-’05 biennium in order to balance the state budget.

A bill to prohibit clinics serving University of Wisconsin System students from dispensing emergency contraceptives violates patients’ privacy rights, discriminates against women and is so vague it could block distribution of all birth control pills, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said Tuesday.

An anti-religion group is denouncing Gov. Jim Doyle’s executive order to lower flags to mark the death of Pope John Paul II.

Doyle’s directive appears like “an endorsement of Roman Catholicism over other religious viewpoints,” according to the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

APPLETON (AP) – A University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh professor has been charged with stalking a 35-year-old Appleton woman who worked briefly at the school.

Richard L. Stiver, 62, of Oshkosh, was released Tuesday from the Outagamie County Jail after posting a $5,000 cash bond on that felony charge and three misdemeanor counts of telephone harassment.

UW System Board of Regents’ request to include $1 million for domestic partner benefits of system employees suffered a large blow Tuesday when the state’s Joint Committee on Finance recommended against including such funds in the state’s 2005-’07 budget.

Wisconsin�s Joint Finance Committee announced Tuesday it will recommend the 2005-07 biennial budget not include a provision introduced by Gov. Jim Doyle aimed to expand University of Wisconsin System employee benefits to domestic partners.

Leaders of the University of Wisconsin System on Tuesday urged lawmakers to reinvest in public higher education – especially in the salaries of faculty and staff – after two years of substantial tuition increases and cuts in state appropriations.

The Colleges and Universities Committee of the State Assembly passed a bill expanding state tax deductions for college savings programs last week.

The legislature�s Joint Committee on Finance criticized Gov. Jim Doyle�s proposed budget Wednesday, mainly due to the $2 billion dollar increase in state spending.

Demonstrating how an industrial cluster is supposed to work, Wisconsin’s printers are roaring ahead to establish a technology center on the campus of the Waukesha County Technical College. The University of Wisconsin-Madison Engineering College provides a resource for pure R&D that could be a platform for a plastics cluster. Printing is making that connection, too. Other engineering schools, like UW-Platteville, will be linked.

The largest state employees union is planning a major rally in Madison next month to focus on the value of public services and to protest several unsettled contracts as well as what they call a “meat ax” approach to budgeting.

Wisconsin State Employee Union members said the rally, scheduled for April 21, will follow emergency meetings through early April in support of their bargaining efforts. WSEU executive director Marty Beil stressed, though, that those meetings would not involve strike votes.

Dear Editor: This responds to Laurene Bach’s March 19 letter noting that complying with open records requests takes up a lot of some public employees’ time.

Park Street runs through the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, and some of the places where students spend the most time are on or near that street including the Memorial Union, Helen C. White College Library, Bascom Hill, and Library Mall. What many students don�t know is that the Park Street corridor is also a major street running through Madison, and one whose buildings and neighborhoods have, over the years, housed many Italian, African American, Hmong, and Latino families, among others. Indeed, the history of Park Street reflects the changing immigration and migration patterns in the United States, and the diverse groups who have made up Madison.

After five public hearings, Republicans now say they may have to accept some of the money-moving transfers recommended by Gov. Jim Doyle to pay for schools and health care – transfers those same Republicans previously denounced. Republicans also seem willing to support UW in-state tuition hikes of 5-7 percent, as proposed by Doyle.