Noted: In addition to setting spending levels, the budget includes a few key policy measures. It scraps the state’s prevailing wage requirement for workers on public construction projects and imposes a new, controversial requirement to track how much time professors in the University of Wisconsin System spend teaching.
Noted: Jonathan Patz, M.D., MPH, is John P Holton Chair of Health and the Environment and director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Assembly Republicans passed the state budget after a 10-week delay Wednesday, sending the $76 billion spending plan to a Senate chamber paralyzed by GOP infighting.
Noted: Supporters of the legislation are touting the economic advantages of mining. They’re also going on the attack, with one organization, the newly organized Natural Resource Development Association, using Twitter to highlight the conviction of a leading mining opponent for attempted arson and possession of a fire bomb at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Army ROTC building in 1970.
University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members are pushing back against Republican lawmakers’ decision to re-insert language in the state budget calling for tracking professors’ teaching loads.
Lawmakers on the state’s budget-writing committee have revived a controversial plan to track how much time professors in the University of Wisconsin System spend teaching — five months after they initially rejected the proposal.
Wisconsin’s $76 billion state budget, which sends more money to K-12 schools but does not come up with a long-term funding solution for dilapidated roads, cleared a legislative committee more than two months late Wednesday night, setting the stage for swift passage in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
In this year’s omnibus motion, lawmakers adopted a Walker proposal to require the UW System to monitor teaching workloads and report that data to the governor and the Legislature; and to move up by a few months 2 percent raises for state employees.
University of Wisconsin schools would be required to monitor teaching workloads for faculty and other instructors under a budget provision passed Wednesday evening by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.
More than two months after it was supposed to have been signed by the governor, Wisconsin’s proposed biennial state budget passed a crucial hurdle Wednesday night as the Joint Finance Committee completed its work on the plan.
The chairman of a panel of University of Wisconsin regents looking at ways to streamline the process of hiring chancellors and other top administrators was surprised to learn that typically it is five months after a search committee is named that a chancellor is hired.
In 2016 the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched Project 72, an initiative aimed at recognizing the powerful partnership between the university and the state’s 72 counties. This year, the university is elevating that message.
MADISON — Impressive contributions to Wisconsin and the world have come from people who lived in all 72 of the state’s counties, a highly visible University of Wisconsin-Madison campaign says.
Wisconsin-based think tank COWS has released their latest “State of Working Wisconsin” report. We speak with Laura Dresser, Associate Director of COWS, about what headway the state has made in the last year.
Health insurance premiums for state workers won’t go up next year, but roughly a fifth of the 250,000 workers and dependents will need to change health plans and 1 percent will have to switch doctors.
The University of Wisconsin System got more than half the bonding authority it wanted for capital projects by the time the Legislature’s budget-writing committee finished its work Monday, and it also got money for major maintenance, repairs and renovations to aging buildings that had been cut from the state’s last biennial budget.
Noted: All technical college boards and UW chancellors could authorize a charter school under the proposal. Now, only the chancellors of UW-Milwaukee and UW-Parkside and the boards of Milwaukee Area Technical College and Gateway Technical College in Kenosha can do so.
Noted: The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau has projected that taxpayers won’t recoup their payments to the company until 2043, even assuming a substantial positive ripple effect in the local economy from the project. Another report by former Walker campaign adviser and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Noah Williams has pointed to other benefits of the project such as the more than $700 million in annual payroll it could bring to the area.
The state’s budget-writing committee unanimously voted Monday to approve a proposal that would give UW-Madison $60 million to repair and maintain buildings on campus.
The Legislature’s budget-writing committee has unanimously endorsed a $1 billion plan to build and maintain state facilities, including more than $60 million for the UW-Madison campus.
Matt Kussow, director of Badger Advocates, a nonprofit group independent of UW-Madison that rallies state support for the university, said the cost of the Foxconn incentive deal is worrisome — in part because university funding often is targeted in a budget crunch.
Letter to the editor from Downs, a UW-Madison professor emeritus of political science and First Amendment scholar, and Underwood, a retired Madison attorney.
Gov. Scott Walker said Tuesday state lawmakers are nearing agreement on the delayed 2017-2019 state budget.
A massive manufacturing complex planned by Foxconn Technology Group could generate broad gains for Wisconsin “that go far beyond the direct job estimates and tax revenue costs which have dominated the recent discussion,” according to a report by a UW-Madison economist released Monday.
Walker on Tuesday was joined by University of Wisconsin Hospital doctors and other university leaders on Tuesday to talk about the statewide benefit the display screen manufacturing facility will bring to the state.
Gov. Scott Walker is touting the potential that a massive Foxconn Technology Group plant could have on Wisconsin’s health care industry.
One innovative program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health aims to reverse the trend by training obstetrician/gynecologists in rural areas with the goal of having them practice in the area.
Noted: Adrian Treves, associate professor of environmental studies at UW-Madison and founder of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab, agrees that wolves remain in a precarious situation: “This is just round three. It’s not over. There is going to be more action.”
Noted: So I was thrilled to read that at least one of his former schools has stepped up to recognize his accomplishments. The University of Wisconsin-Madison recently singled out Eddie in its “Thank You 72” campaign that chose a UW graduate from each of the state’s 72 counties to spotlight.
Noted: Neis points to GE Healthcare, which employs 6,800 people and has 870 suppliers in Wisconsin, supporting another 21,000 jobs. GE has worked closely with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he noted, and executives have left the company to start their own ventures, including TomoTherapy, NeuWave Medical and Healthmyne. Foxconn could have the same halo effect.
The income gap between the rich and the poor remains near its highest level ever, according to a new report by the Wisconsin Budget Project and COWS at UW Madison.
University of Wisconsin System campuses should beef up their engineering programs to train workers at a planned Foxconn facility in southeastern Wisconsin by cutting funding for less popular programs — not by asking the state for more money — a Republican senator said Monday.
On Tuesday, Organic Valley will celebrate its participation in the University of Wisconsin’s Project 72 Campaign, which celebrates the state’s 72 counties with stories and events. The project features a 1957 International Harvester delivery truck handing out ice cream treats to residents as a token of gratitude to them for helping make UW a world-class institution. The truck will be at Organic Valley’s Cashton location from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday to distribute treats to employees and others who attend.
The University of Wisconsin System says with more state money, it can boost engineering enrollments and training for other workers needed by a Taiwanese electronics company that has big plans to build a factory in southeastern Wisconsin.
More than two years after it was created as part of the state’s 2015-’17 budget, the University of Wisconsin System’s Office of Educational Opportunity is taking steps to authorize its first charter schools.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross also told lawmakers he believes the Foxconn project would be “transformative” for the state and would “catapult” the state university system into a “position of global prominence.”
The company is looking for a 20-acre site in the Madison area on which it can build a 700,000-square-foot manufacturing plant that could employ as many as 650 people over the first five years of operation, according to the July 26 email the Madison Region Economic Partnership (MadREP) sent to city, county, UW-Madison and business officials around Dane County. July 26 was also the day Foxconn’s Wisconsin project was announced in Washington, D.C.
Both UW System President Ray Cross and Chancellor Rebecca Blank said that they were a part of the discussion process with Foxconn early on.
UW-Madison economist Steven Deller said it’s encouraging that Walker’s office has pledged certain safeguards for taxpayers, including clawback provisions for the state to recoup tax credits if Foxconn stops operating or leaves the state.
There are 75,000 graduates produced each year by the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System and the state’s private colleges and universities. That’s a likely source for some of the workers who will eventually fill Foxconn’s Wisconsin labor force. Wisconsin colleges and universities are also home to a research and development structure that rivals what can be found in most states – although it’s time to reinvest in that asset before quality wanes.
That ecosystem would be ideal, but it is far from guaranteed, said Hart Posen, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, on a recent episode of political talk show “Capital City Sunday.” The state needs to keep working to fully take advantage of Foxconn, he said.
Walker said part of wooing Foxconn to Wisconsin included meetings with chancellors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee and the president of Gateway Technical College to talk about training opportunities so graduates would be prepared to work at the plant.
UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank also said Wednesday she met with Foxconn officials recently “to promote the State of Wisconsin as a possible destination and illustrate the advantages of having an internationally ranked research partner like the University of Wisconsin-Madison nearby.” “Today’s decision by Foxconn Technology Group, a top international manufacturer, to locate a plant in Wisconsin is a major leap forward for our state’s economy,” Blank said in a statement. “It also illustrates the importance of a culture of innovation, along with a strong public research university, to regional economic development.”
MADISON – Foxconn executives have met with staff of the Carbone Cancer Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — a sign of how far the economic ripples of a deal with the company might eventually extend.
Paul Jadin, president of the Madison Region Economic Partnership, said there would be potential links for local medical-device manufacturers and for UW-Madison. “Certainly there would be opportunities for our supply chain. We also would be a very significant player in research and development” at UW-Madison, Jadin said.
A spokesman for Chancellor Becky Blank would not confirm a meeting had taken place, but said in a statement that ” UW-Madison supports economic development efforts in the advanced manufacturing or tech sectors that will provide more opportunities for Wisconsin and its citizens.”
Noted: Before heading out, check wave conditions around the caves at wavesatseacaves.cee.wisc.edu, a service of the University of Wisconsin-Madison that posts real-time wave data at the caves, which can be different from the conditions at the launch point.
State lawmakers heard testimony Tuesday on a bill which would bar UW medical students from receiving training on how to perform an abortion, a move which critics say could threaten the accreditation of some programs.
A Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin is pushing legislation to prohibit medical students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from learning how to provide abortions. If he is successful, the OB-GYN shortage in the state could worsen, and the state’s medical school could lose national accreditation for its OB-GYN program.
Nearly a third of Wisconsinites – 29 percent – live in one of the state’s many rural areas, but only 13 percent of the physicians in Wisconsin have rural practices. The Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine (WARM), a program to recruit doctors to serve in rural areas of the state, is having success and getting national recognition.
A controversial bill to ban University of Wisconsin resident doctors from learning how to perform abortions was debated at the Capitol Tuesday. It’s a measure opponents say would worsen the shortage of OB-GYNs in Wisconsin.
A bill that would block University of Wisconsin OB-GYN residents from learning to perform abortions got a public hearing Tuesday at the state Capitol, with abortion opponents and medical organizations lining up on opposite sides of the issue.
A Republican bill that would block UW-Madison faculty from training resident physicians in abortions would worsen a shortage of obstetrics/gynecological providers in the state, school officials say.
Back in April, Andre Jacque, a Republican politician and member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, introduced a bill that sought to disallow University of Wisconsin from training enrolled individuals to perform abortions. The bill would also insist that training to perform terminations can be conducted only in hospitals. Jacque’s bill has caused a significant deal of alarm and concern among some faculty members and students, which is why the University of Wisconsin is fighting the anti-abortion bill.
School officials at the University of Wisconsin Madison campus have concerns about the future of the school’s national OB-GYN accreditation. The disappointing reason this Wisconsin school could lose its accreditation: a Republican-backed state House bill that would prevent the UW-Madison faculty from training its resident physicians in abortion procedures. Officials also believe that the bill would worsen the existing shortage of obstetrics/gynecological providers located in the state of Wisconsin. The school is fighting the bill with all its might.
Old guys who hunt have been stepping up to help the Snapshot Wisconsin project, a booming citizen-based science initiative that’s using trail cameras to document what’s going on in our woodlands and other wild places when we’re not looking.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Republican bill that would block University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty from training resident physicians in abortions would worsen a shortage of obstetrics/gynecological providers in the state, school officials say.
Think the cost of a University of Wisconsin education has been frozen for the past four years? Think again: that’s just tuition.
An estimate from the University of Wisconsin System said it cannot predict the bill’s impact on the System’s budget.
We talk to Jake Vander Zanden, an expert about the ongoing efforts to curtail the spread of Zebra mussels in Wisconsin lakes.
