The regents are scheduled to approve the 2018-19 budget Friday at UW-Milwaukee. The spending plan calls for raising student fees at four-year schools an average of $33 per student. Room and board would increase an average of $118.
Gov. Scott Walker has instructed state agencies to assume their next budgets will have no increases in state funding, with exceptions for some of the budget’s priciest areas such as schools, prisons and Medicaid.
Walker said Republican initiatives that would be undone with Democratic wins include the Foxconn display-screen manufacturing project that could bring 13,000 jobs to the state in exchange for $4.5 billion in taxpayer incentives; a University of Wisconsin tuition freeze; photo identification requirements for voting; abortion limitations; and collective bargaining restrictions enacted through the Act 10 law.
A state legislative panel has approved a plan to divvy up about $26 million to University of Wisconsin System campuses based on metrics for student access, progress toward completion, “workforce contributions” and operating efficiencies.
The state Senate has voted to give state workers, including University of Wisconsin System workers, across-the-board 2-percent pay increases in each of the next two years.
College tuition could become free for foster children throughout the state under a new bill, as legislators argue that those who age out of the system receive far too little social support.
Walker also announced creation of a $200,000 scholarship fund to encourage students to take agriculture courses at a state technical college or the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture.
A new bill could revitalize a dormant program from last century to create environmental conservation jobs for some of the nearly 70 percent of young people struggling with higher education costs and student debt in the state.
The bills would create grants to provide incentives for serving as foster parents and give foster children free tuition within the University of Wisconsin System and the Wisconsin Technical College System.
Public universities in the Midwest have conducted some of the country’s most important research, leading to scientific and technological breakthroughs. And funding cuts to these universities can carry major economic impacts.
The main barrier to taking more is a lack of faculty to educate more students without diminishing the quality of the experience for all. Private gifts help, but the core funding for faculty hires comes from state government support and student tuition. Neither source has grown much for years.
Although Gov. Walker signed the two-year state budget into law over a week ago, the UW System is still figuring out how the budget affects one of its programs targeted at non-traditional students.
The measures also will impact the University of Wisconsin, which, after years of Republican budget cuts and policies that some claim are anti-academic, is already having problems recruiting and retaining talented faculty.
Sigurd Olson – loyal guardian of northern lakes and waterways – has been selected to represent Ashland and Bayfield counties as part of an ad campaign launched by UW-Madison known as Project 72 with the new slogan, “Thank You!”
Blank appeared on a recent segment of Sunday political talk show “UpFront with Mike Gousha” with UW Colleges and UW Extension Chancellor Cathy Sandeen. The pair weighed in on the budget, a new one-year free tuition program for first generation students and the proposed Foxconn plant, expressing optimism about all three.
Gov. Scott Walker signed the state budget on Thursday last week, securing an extra $100 million in funding for the University of Wisconsin System.
Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday signed the two-year, $76 billion budget, providing $600 million more for K-12 schools, cutting property taxes, keeping a freeze on instate University of Wisconsin System tuition and doubling fees on hybrid drivers.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is signing the nearly three-month late state budget into law, a move that will allow him to transition into re-election mode.
Gov. Scott Walker issued 99 partial vetoes of the state’s two-year budget on Wednesday, rejecting several highly-anticipated additions to the bill, which was written by the Republican-held Wisconsin Legislature.
In their latest attack on the eggheads, Wisconsin Republicans have revived Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to force the University of Wisconsin System to keep track of the time professors spend teaching and to reward those “who teach more than a standard academic load.”
Among the non-fiscal items the finance committee added to the budget are: Looser qualifications for UW System leaders; A mandate for UW to report and reward the time professors spend teaching.
The state budget is now back in the hands of Gov. Scott Walker. The state Senate passed the $76 billion spending plan on a vote of 19-14 on Friday night.
Nass, Stroebel and Kapenga have given Fitzgerald a list of amendments they want, including expanding the state’s voucher school program, blocking the University of Wisconsin System from spending $4 million on diversity training and moving up repeal of prevailing wage laws from September 2018 to January.
Noted: Kapenga, Nass and Stroebel’s hoped-for changes include requiring a referendum before local governments can impose wheel taxes; allowing local governments to continue to regulate quarries; prohibiting diversity training for University of Wisconsin System students, and speeding up the repeal of the state’s prevailing wage law that determines the minimum pay for those working on publicly funded infrastructure projects.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is accusing some Senate Republicans of holding the state hostage with their opposition to the state budget.
Four Republican senators are holding up final approval of Wisconsin’s delayed state budget.
Noted: HIGHER EDUCATION: Tuition across the University of Wisconsin system would be frozen this year and next while increasing funding by $36 million, two years after their budget was cut by $250 million. UW would have to monitor teaching workloads and develop policies rewarding those who teach more than average. All UW campuses would be barred from requiring that only faculty members or those granted tenure be considered when hiring chancellors or president of the system.
Noted: Tuition at University of Wisconsin System schools will be frozen for another two years, but the budget will not include Walker’s proposal to cut tuition.
The UW budget also includes $26.3 million in performance-based funding to be tied to four goals for the UW System: student access, student progress and completion, contributions to the workforce and operational efficiency and effectiveness. The Board of Regents will be required to set metrics to measure schools’ progress toward those goals if they stay in the budget once it is formally adopted
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Gov. Scott Walker said Tuesday state lawmakers are nearing agreement on the delayed 2017-2019 state budget.
Letter to the editor: Given the high status and high salaries of many of these positions, the new preferred hiring pool would likely be heads of major corporations, who would expect CEO-type salaries when they become provosts and chancellors. This is a dangerous path.
Wisconsin’s state budget impasse just got $51 million harder to solve thanks to the tax increases that neighboring Illinois enacted to finally pass its spending plan, state lawmakers learned Tuesday.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s state budget impasse just got $51 million harder to solve thanks to the tax increases that Illinois enacted to finally pass its spending plan, state lawmakers learned Tuesday.
Leaders at UW System schools could be recruited outside of academia if language in the 2017-2019 biennial budget remains, granting new Board of Regents President John Behling’s wish of recruiting leaders from the private sector.
The University of Wisconsin System Regents on Thursday approved a budget that will freeze resident undergraduate tuition for a fifth straight year but increase student fees and housing costs on all campuses.
UW-Madison did not have to make the deep staff and program reductions other University of Wisconsin System institutions faced through years of state budget cuts, supporters of those campuses say.
A lobbying group made up of UW-Madison alumni and donors is criticizing the University of Wisconsin System’s plan to pull $6.5 million of new funding from the flagship campus and distribute it among smaller institutions.
University of Wisconsin System officials are planning to give UW-Madison a smaller share of new state funding under an operating budget proposal released this week.
The deadline to pass a new Wisconsin budget came and went over the weekend without any serious consequences for state government, but a mixture of practical and political pressure could build on lawmakers the longer they wait to act.
For the second budget in a row, Wisconsin will ends its fiscal year without a new two-year spending plan in place. The current biennium is set to end at midnight tonight, with majority Republicans in the state Assembly and Senate still far apart on finalizing details of a new budget.
University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty want the state Legislature’s budget-writing committee to rework the leadership structure for the newly proposed Tommy Thompson Center, a conservative think tank on the campus.
A faculty group wants lawmakers to remove language from the state budget prohibiting the University of Wisconsin System regents from imposing strict qualifications for top administrative positions.
Faculty at University of Wisconsin-Madison are asking the state Legislature’s budget-writing committee to change the leadership model of a proposed campus conservative think-tank named for former Gov. Tommy Thompson.
The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee should be commended for approving a much-needed raise for state employees — and for including University of Wisconsin System employees.
Letter to the editor from Matt Kussow, executive director of Badger Advocates.
The Legislature’s budget committee has voted to eliminate a same-sex domestic partner registry established in 2009.
Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed switch to a self-insurance plan for state workers was rejected Thursday in a rare bipartisan vote by the Wisconsin Legislature’s budget-writing committee, a defeat for the governor who had lobbied hard to make the change.
Amid an ongoing stalemate over transportation and education funding, the Legislature’s budget committee voted unanimously Thursday to give state employees a 4 percent raise over the next two years.
Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed switch to a self-insurance plan for state workers was expected to be rejected Thursday by the Wisconsin Legislature’s budget-writing committee, a defeat for the governor that would force lawmakers to find $60 million in savings elsewhere.
