Skip to main content

Category: State budget

Wisconsin Senate will likely revisit bill to ease regulations on high-capacity wells

Posted on
Capital Times

University of Wisconsin funding: (Gov.) Walker has said his budget will not cut UW funding, and has suggested the UW System could see an increase tied to performance-based metrics. (Senate Majority Leader) Fitzgerald said each two-year budget cycle should be reviewed independently. Campus carry: Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, has said he plans to reintroduce legislation to allow concealed weapons to be carried on college campuses. University of Wisconsin-Madison students opposed to the idea have promised to protest it by carrying sex toys on campus. “That’s a good example of a bill that probably, you may have to make changes to it to get the support, but certainly I think we’ll take a look at that and probably tackle it earlier rather than later if we look at that,” Fitzgerald said.

Republican lawmakers return to historic majorities

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald outlined their priorities for the upcoming 2017-18 session … The GOP now controls the executive and legislative branches of state and federal government for the first time in nearly five decades, and Republicans now hold near-unprecedented majorities in the Capitol, with a 64-35 seat majority in the Assembly — the largest since 1957 — and 20-13 in the Senate — the biggest since 1971 … But the two also were notably apart on key issues like how to fund school districts and the University of Wisconsin System for the two years starting July 1 and the possibility of medical marijuana being legalized in Wisconsin … Vos’ pledge for more transparency and to find broad public support for legislation came when asked by reporters on Tuesday whether he supports controversial legislation that would allow concealed carry permit holders to bring weapons to college campuses. “I think it’s incumbent upon the legislators who have an idea to spread across the state, find people to support it, get groundswells of support to bring an idea here, not just convince a bunch of people in our caucus to pass a bill without making sure the public is where we are,” said Vos on Tuesday. Fitzgerald said GOP senators would “take a look at” campus carry legislation but was noncommittal about its odds of passage. Vos said he’s open to the idea, but that the caucus hasn’t discussed it.

UW-Extension revamp continuing

Posted on
Daily Jefferson County Union

When the state’s 2015-17 biennial budget was approved in mid-2015, it brought with it a $3.6 million cut in funding to Cooperative Ex­tension, a division of the Uni­versity of Wisconsin-Extension. Upon realizing that the existing struc­ture would be unable to sustain the same level of operations, Extension officials began working on a massive reorganization process.

Scott Walker: Budget will include more money for schools, sales tax holiday, park fee increases

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Walker also said he won’t cut funding to the University of Wisconsin System in his next budget, but he may try to reduce tuition. And he rejected a Republican lawmaker’s suggestion that the state withhold funding from UW-Madison if it doesn’t drop a course on race relations called “The Problem of Whiteness.”

 “I could certainly as a citizen or as a father who pays part of my kids’ tuition roll my eyes and raise concerns about some of the classes,” Walker said. “But our focus in the budget should be on overall performance and not individual classes.”

As financial aid office pushes to help students, state is unable to provide more grant funding

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

About 63 percent of undergraduate students at the university will receive some form of financial aid through his office each year, Kindle explained, though the source of that aid varies.Nearly 50 percent of UW-Madison’s aid comes from the federal government, 32 percent stems from the school itself and just 6 percent is provided by the state, according to the 2016-’17 Budget in Brief.

UW Chancellors urge lawmakers to restore and boost funding in

Posted on
WFRV-TV, Green Bay

Leaders of two U-W System schools, including U-W Oshkosh, hope lawmakers will consider the benefits of increased funding for the system. Last budget cycle, the U-W System had to cut spending by $250-million. U-W-O Chancellor Andrew Leavitt and U-W Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank say they’ve made the cutbacks work. But they say the time has come to look at state funding of higher education as an investment for the state.

UW-Madison staff uncertain on move to self-insurance

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

Many UW faculty are questioning what this means for them. Self-insurance does not affect how employees pay for insurance. Instead, the state would pay the benefits directly to the Department of Employee Trust Funds rather than paying health insurance companies a fixed premium. The ETF then has more control of how funds are spent and could potentially improve member care and quality of services.

Journal Times Editorial: Giving UW construction authority worth considering

Posted on
Racine Journal Times

It doesn’t seem like a stretch to say that relations are strained between the University of Wisconsin System and Republicans in the state Capitol. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed extending a tuition freeze for a fifth and sixth year in the 2017-19 biennial budget, a freeze which System administrators say jeopardizes higher education in the state. Walker and his counterparts in the GOP majority in the Legislature would likely reply by inquiring about the status of the System’s cash reserves, which stood at $648 million in the spring of 2013.

Journal Times editorial: Giving UW construction authority worth considering

Posted on
Racine Journal Times

It doesn’t seem like a stretch to say that relations are strained between the University of Wisconsin System and Republicans in the state Capitol. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed extending a tuition freeze for a fifth and sixth year in the 2017-19 biennial budget, a freeze which System administrators say jeopardizes higher education in the state. Walker and his counterparts in the GOP majority in the Legislature would likely reply by inquiring about the status of the System’s cash reserves, which stood at $648 million in the spring of 2013.

With declining state support for UW, budget could tie funding to performance

Posted on
Daily Cardinal

The state’s biennial budget might seem complicated, but it has very real effects for the students, faculty, administration and staff that make up the UW System. In the last round, they were forced to absorb a $250 million cut that changed the experiences of students across the state. As the next budget looms, follow The Daily Cardinal’s series on what it could hold for key UW players.