MADISON, Wisconsin — Gov. Scott Walker will have to plug a roughly $280 million budget shortfall by the end of June, and the state faces a two-year deficit that could be as large as $2 billion, based on new estimates released Friday by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Sen. Scott Fitzgerald is awaiting more details from Gov. Scott Walker, but says flexibility will be a consideration.
Despite its record enrollment this year, the loss of instructors at UW-Stout keeps Chancellor Bob Meyer awake at night.
Changes could be on the way for the UW System in the next state budget.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank says there is no proposal under discussion that would give her campus independence beyond that of the university system.
The chancellor responds to a State Journal report that Gov. Walker is considering giving the UW System more flexibility.
… once public universities or public university systems get the authority to increase tuition, “you get the tendency to increase tuition.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank expects the university will face a cut in the next state budget.
Days after The Wisconsin State Journal reported Gov. Scott Walker was considering splitting UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System in his budget proposal, neither state Republicans nor System officials have confirmed or denied the allegation.
University of Wisconsin rewarded exceptional staff performances with more than 1,637 merit payments in 2014, the most awarded by any state agency.
Noted: In January, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and National Wildlife Health Center in Madison reported that bats with white-nose syndrome use twice as much energy in hibernation as healthy bats. The paper was published in December in BMC Physiology.
Noted: Daley spoke to reporters on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus after addressing the board of the Wisconsin Technology Council, where he said he was reluctant to overturn state laws and would give deference to legislators.
Noted: Perhaps it was Gloria Ladson-Billings, the University of Wisconsin professor and longtime education advocate, who delivered a stirring keynote address, reminding the audience that King’s message wasn’t just about a dream. It was about acting on the dream.
The universities would operate as a public authority, under an idea being discussed.
But he won’t expand on the internal discussions until his Feb. 3 budget address.
Gov. Scott Walker acknowledged Monday that his administration is considering granting more autonomy to the University of Wisconsin System.
It didn’t take long for some opponents to line up against a possible decoupling of the state’s universities from the state.
As he continues work on his proposed biennial budget, Governor Scott Walker says he’s still looking at possible plans for the future of the University of Wisconsin System and its flagship campus.
Noted: The grant is aimed at helping reduce phosphorous and sediment loads that are slowing clean-up efforts of area lakes. Project partners include UW-Madison’s Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems.
Gov. Scott Walker is expected to paint a grim picture when he delivers his plan in a few weeks for balancing the state budget, which would stand in sharp contrast to his upbeat State of the State speech.
Each year, as a state law requires, the Wisconsin Department of Administration produces a Contractual Services Purchasing Report. It tracks spending by state agencies and the University of Wisconsin to outsource tasks ranging from information technology to janitorial work. State workers have long argued that they could be doing many of these jobs for less.
A laboratory designed to host classified cybersecurity research has been built at the University Research Park on the West Side. It comes after last year’s approval by the state Legislature of classified research at University of Wisconsin System labs.
President Barack Obama’s proposal to make community college free is “both smart and bold,” says Sara Goldrick-Rab, the UW-Madison education policy analyst who has focused her research on making college affordable.
Two UW-Madison professors last spring proposed making the first two years of college free. “Students will not face any costs for tuition, fees, books or supplies, and will receive a stipend and guaranteed employment at a living wage to cover their living expenses,” wrote Sara Goldrick-Rab and Nancy Kendall, who study educational policy at the university. “Unsubsidized, dischargeable loans of a small amount will also be available for those who need them.”
Noted: The results from different tests would have to be compared by UW-Madisons Value-Added Research Center, which studies how to measure student learning. Brad Carl, associate director and researcher at the center, said while that was technically possible, it would not be the most reliable way of comparing the performance of different schools.
Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature should give UW-Madison the right to work without micro-management. Take off the shackles that bind UW’s hands.
Speaking to the Madison Rotary Club yesterday, Cross acknowledged the state is facing a tough budget and the university system shouldn’t be exempt as lawmakers manage scarce resources. But he said the university should be viewed as a partner and investment, rather than an expense.
The legislation also asks that UW-Madison’s Value-Added Research Center provide the new board a list of alternative tests “acceptable for statistical comparison” with the tests adopted by the superintendent. It also requires the research center to work with the board and DPI to review alternative tests proposed by schools, and asks that it equate the scores between the different tests. Brad Carl, associate director of the center, said while it’s possible to do that, the most accurate way to compare test takers is to have all students taking the same test on the same academic standards.
Wisconsin’s college savings plan, EdVest, now allows contributions to count for 2014’s taxes as long as they’re made by April 15, the deadline to file tax returns.
The campus awarded 1,637 raises, more than one-third of the total 4,704 increases from January through October, to employees including custodians, academic department and program staff and information systems workers.
He offered some possibilities for finding efficiencies. One, he said, was in more flexibilities for the UW System in hiring and financial matters.
For over 100 years, UW-Madison researchers have conducted dirt, plant and agricultural tests for Wisconsin farmers at a laboratory on Mineral Point Road to further agricultural research in the state. But later this year, the Soil and Plant Analysis Laboratory will be consolidated with a second lab in Marshfield.
The study, from a research group led by UW-Madison botany professor Donald Waller, says deer account for at least 40 percent of the change seen in the forests over the past half-century or so.
Noted: In 2013-14, the MPS tutoring program targeted 42 schools for after-school sessions, with services provided by Cardinal Stritch University and Educate Online Learning, according to the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
For the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all focus for the upcoming legislative session is on the state budget. The university doesn’t traditionally promote or oppose specific bills in the Legislature, said Charles Hoslet, associate vice chancellor of government and corporate affairs. “Ninety percent of what we’re interested in happens in the state budget,” Hoslet said.
Maybe the GOP has actually convinced voters that we do not need and cannot afford a world-class research university such as the one we have at UW-Madison. After all, it is GOP pols who like to say — to dodge overwhelming evidence that climate change exists — that they cannot opine on it because they are not scientists. So, not grasping the promise of stem cells and other advanced research, maybe they think Wisconsin’s flagship university should stick to training for professions they understand.
Controversial reforms proposed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Burlington, for the University of Wisconsin — like monitoring professors’ workload and rethinking tenure — may not even be applicable at UW-Madison, says faculty advocacy group PROFS.
And the second most powerful state political figure, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, has joined the attack on science. Vos … threatened that he wants university research to focus exclusively on economic development and not, as he put it, “on the ancient mating habits of whatever.” University researchers will now have to worry that the guy who holds their purse strings and can cut their budget will be passing judgment on what they should research.
For the third straight year, dozens of state agencies handed out bonuses and raises to state workers.
UW President Ray Cross – It’s tough enough to have 17 bosses on the UW Board of Regents, but Cross seems to have picked 132 more in the Wisconsin Legislature. A stocking stuffer for Cross is a copy of “My Way or the Highway: The Micromanagement Survival Guide.”
Noted: The Audit Bureau says tips cover a wide variety of topics including the use of parking fees and fines at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, difficulty filing unemployment insurance claims and welfare fraud.
As a new budget cycle approached early this year, University of Wisconsin-Superior administrators anticipated the campus would receive added revenue from a tuition increase and more money from the UW System.
MADISON, Wisconsin — The director of a group that advocates for religious and private schools was named Thursday as the new lobbyist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison at a salary 14 percent higher than his predecessor’s.
Passed with bipartisan majorities in 1997-98, the law, according to UW-Madison law and bioethics professor R. Alta Charo, is also filled with “ambiguous language that gives authorities tremendous discretion.”
Rebecca Blank, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spoke about the importance of investing in the university at a Rotary Club of Beloit lunch Tuesday.
A UW-Madison atheist group has added three new displays to the state Capitol rotunda this holiday season.
Contains perspectives from poli sci profs Kathy Cramer, Barry Burden.
Vos said he wants to more closely monitor university professors to make sure they are carrying an appropriate course load as a teacher or conducting productive research.
Noted: In July, authorities announced the discovery of Asian crazy worm at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. Since then its popped up in spots across the state, including multiple locations in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties.
William Jones, a UW-Madison history professor, cited comments Walker made to Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks, a prominent GOP donor, in January 2011. Hendricks had asked Walker whether lawmakers could make Wisconsin a “completely red state” and “become a right-to-work state.” Walker replied that the “first step” was public employee unions, “because you use divide and conquer.” “I think it’s clear that he supports this type of thing,” Jones said.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross said it’s time for a fresh look at how the statewide system does business, calling for an array of measures that would cut costs and could affect campus life.
University of Wisconsin System president Ray Cross is proposing changes in three main areas in an effort to enhance quality and affordability.
Rebecca Blank, UW-Madison chancellor, echoed those concerns at a November Board of Regents meeting, calling the proposed creation of new programs “really foolish.” UW-Madison, the flagship, has by far the largest engineering program, followed by UW-Platteville, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Stevens Point. The chancellors at River Falls, Eau Claire and Stout — along the Interstate 94 corridor — proposed the Northwest Wisconsin Engineering Consortium in response, they said, to growing demand from business owners for more engineers in the region.
A hotline could soon be in place to report waste, fraud or abuse by University of Wisconsin System employees or schools, separate from an existing hotline run by the state audit bureau.
Although he served as a student member of the UW Board of Regents back in 1989, he has had the UW-Madison in the cross hairs because some in the administration crossed him. His latest threat is to have the Republican-led Legislature micromanage how many hours professors spend in the classroom — and worse, make sure the UW’s huge research function is geared to helping the state’s economy, rather than focusing on “ancient mating habits of whatever.” It shows how ignorant Vos and all too many of his colleagues are about the UW-Madison and its internationally renowned research, which has found cures for diseases, revolutionized farming and the production of food, educated students who have gone out to lead the business world, is on the cutting edge of stem cell development and is a leader in countless other scientific and technology areas — benefits for not only Wisconsin’s economy, but the world.
Kate VandenBosch realizes that as dramatic as changes have been at the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences since the college was founded in 1889, they are likely to be equally as dramatic as the college moves into the next 125 years of its existence. In fact, VandenBosch has witnessed significant change on the campus even since she took over as the CALS dean in March of 2012.
University of Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank stressed the importance of being transparent with state legislators about what a recently announced $100 million gift will mean for UW at a Faculty Senate meeting Monday.
Two speakers coming to the Northwoods this week will discuss water relationships in northern Wisconsin. Lakes, streams and wetlands are abundant in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. Emily Stanley from UW Madison’s Center for Limnology says the water resources here are intricately linked, and are really one resource.
Recently, in discussing the University of Wisconsin System’s request for $95.2 million more in state funding, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker and former UW System regent Robin Vos, R-Rochester, commented on the research being done at the University of Wisconsin. He said UW should have “research done in a way that focuses on growing our economy, not on, you know, ancient mating habits or whatever.” Although this comment could be dismissed as a malicious statement against UW, it is important that we discuss why this sentiment is false and potentially detrimental.
UW-Madison paid full professors an average of $109,300 — 25 percent below the median among 11 comparable schools around the nation.
