The new UW Colleges chancellor survived a symbolic no-confidence vote from faculty members Friday, but rancor remains over how the 13 two-year schools will absorb an expected $6.7 million in budget cuts.
STEVENS POINT — After the state’s budget-writing committee voted to trim Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cuts to the University of Wisconsin System by $50 million, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Chancellor Bernie Patterson said the reduction could help faculty and staff avoid involuntary layoffs.
Faculty members at the University of Wisconsin were disheartened on Friday after a state legislative committee approved proposals that would limit the faculty’s role in shared governance and eliminate laws protecting tenure.
It’s been a tumultuous year for faculty members within the University of Wisconsin System, from threats to the Wisconsin Idea to a proposed $300 million budget cut to Governor Scott Walker’s suggestion that professors do more work to compensate for the slash.
The Legislature’s budget-writing committee voted Friday to cut the University of Wisconsin’s budget by $250 million and eliminate tenure protections for faculty from state law — moves derided by Democrats who argued the changes would hurt both higher education and the state’s economy.
Members of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee have restored some of the cuts Governor Scott Walker proposed for the University of Wisconsin System in his budget plan. Although, the UW will still have to absorb funding reductions of $250 million over the next biennium.
Republicans on the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted Friday night to cut the University of Wisconsin System’s budget by $250 million, while at the same time ending tenure protections enshrined in state law.
The University of Wisconsin System would see $250 million in cuts and sweeping changes in its operations, under a proposal put forward by GOP lawmakers Friday that will still be less dramatic than changes proposed by Gov. Scott Walker.
In a final push on the state budget bill, a key legislative panel is scheduled to start voting Friday on how deeply to cut the University of Wisconsin System and key natural resource programs, whether to publicly fund a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks and how to fund highways.
Editorial: The governor proposed the $300 million cut to UW System as part of a larger plan to give the state’s 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges more autonomy. Freedom from state purchasing rules and construction fees could have saved UW significant money to help offset the state cut. But lawmakers have largely rejected that flexibility. So they also should reject most of the cut, especially if tuition is frozen. That’s only fair.With the economy improving, Wisconsin shouldn’t be skimping on higher education. Other states are wisely investing in their universities. Ten chambers of commerce representing thousands of businesses across the state sent a powerful letter to the Joint Finance Committee on Wednesday, urging it to reduce $300 million cut to UW. The letter stressed the positive impact the System has on the state economy and jobs.
The committee is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Friday, but its last several sessions have been postponed for several hours each. All remaining items in the budget are listed on the agenda, including a proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System, the Department of Transportation budget and a proposal to partially fund construction of a new Milwaukee Bucks arena.
The UW cut up for a vote Friday is one of the most controversial pieces of Walker’s two-year state spending plan. Republicans who control the budget-writing committee have already said they won’t go along with Walker’s plan to give UW more independence from state laws and oversight.
Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million budget cut to the University of Wisconsin System is slated to be voted on by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.
For the coming fiscal year, Wisconsin is one of only a few states considering or enacting cuts to higher education. A reporter looks the numbers, and how Wisconsin stacks up.
The future was the focus of a public forum at the UW-Extension building in Wausau on Wednesday night.
Among other actions Wednesday, the Joint Finance Committee approved $86.2 million in bonding to renovate and expand UW-Madison’s outdated chemistry building.
Noted: Earmark several private projects by providing $15 million in state borrowing for the Confluence Project, a proposed arts complex in Eau Claire; $5 million in borrowing to help build an agriculture education center in Manitowoc County; $3 million in borrowing to help fund a science laboratory for Carroll University; and provide $86.2 million for a new chemistry building for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Higher education observers across the nation are watching this week as the Legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee takes up funding for the University of Wisconsin System.
As Illinois, Louisiana and Wisconsin threatened nine-figure reductions in higher education funding, public colleges and universities in those states made their own threats in return. System leaders warned — often and loudly — that layoffs, program cuts and the general welfare of the states’ college students were on the line if legislators went forward with the proposed cuts.
When the state of Wisconsin is facing fiscal challenges, it’s more than fair to expect the University of Wisconsin-Madison and all the campuses in the UW System to play a role in closing the budget gap. Universities across the system are already doing their part by streamlining staffing, making cuts to operations and finding ways to generate additional revenue.
There will finally be answers to some of the big questions about Wisconsin’s state budget if everything goes as planned this week at the state Capitol.
The University of Wisconsin’s network of two-year colleges plans to slash its administrative ranks — in the process cutting nearly 10 percent of its overall workforce — in response to Gov. Scott Walker’s historic $300 million proposed cut to the University of Wisconsin System.
Concerned about far-reaching impacts, the Baraboo City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday that opposes proposed state budget cuts for the local University of Wisconsin campus.
Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to do away with a small state agency that approves and regulates for-profit colleges was voted down Thursday night by the Legislature’s budget committee, likely meaning the Educational Approval Board will continue unchanged after being on the guillotine since late January.
For graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the state appears to be fertile ground for business startups.
Members of the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee won’t decide until later this month whether or not they will reduce the $300 million cut to the UW System proposed in Gov. Scott Walker’s biennial budget. But with the UW System’s fiscal year set to begin on July 1, campuses have been forced to prepare for a worst-case scenario. So regardless of what the Legislature does, the cuts are already being enacted.
The 13 colleges in the University of Wisconsin System have been told to prepare for a reduction of $2.6 million in a first round of budget cuts, with maybe more to follow.
A liberal advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker over records related to his administrations attempt to alter the Wisconsin Idea, which has guided the mission of the states public higher education system for more than a century.
State workers’ main out-of-pocket health care costs will double next year, after the Group Insurance Board approved changes Tuesday to save $85 million over two years. The cuts, to begin Jan. 1, were requested in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget and are designed to avoid a “Cadillac” tax on rich benefit programs from the Affordable Care Act.
Of the 434 positions cut, 70 would be faculty, 108 would be academic staff and 66 would be graduate assistants, according to documents provided to News 3. No faculty would be laid off.
State workers and their family members would see their main out-of-pocket health care costs double next year under proposed budget cuts officials will take up Tuesday. The state Department of Employee Trust Fund’s Group Insurance Board is expected to vote on the proposal, which would satisfy requested cuts to worker benefits in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget.
Higher ed beat column on fraud line (“UW System will pay $35,000 a year to a Georgia company, The Network Inc., for the next five years to field calls and Web submissions about possible violations.”) and UW–Madison budget cuts (“An updated tally of jobs lost at UW-Madison due to Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed historic $300 million cut to the UW System stands at 434, according to figures released by the university. Of them, 84 percent will come from open jobs that won’t be filled.”)
Noted: The announcement about WEDC also said the governor wanted to take $55 million from the state budget that had been designated for WEDC and turn it into a worker training program. Walker said he may also be open to other options, including diverting that money to schools or the UW System.
Tenure gives proven, productive faculty members (the only ones who are awarded tenure) the confidence to stick out our necks and take risks. There are rewards for success and penalties for failure in the academic world, but most faculty would dial back on pursuit of risky ideas if not for tenure.
Something was missing from the heated debate over the proposed new University of Wisconsin authority and $300 million budget cut for the UW system. The UW leaders have been on a public relations blitz. Layoffs have been threatened. Billions of dollars of economic impact have been claimed.
When the University of Wisconsin System gets its funding from the state, it comes as a pool of money that gets divided up for campus use. Not all of the money gets put directly toward the cost of teaching, however. Before it moves on to the campuses, some of the pot has to cover the System’s debt service and the cost of utilities. (Graphics showing how funding is spent.)
I write this from the perspective of a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW Marathon County faculty member. I also served as chairman of the UW Colleges Psychology Department and acting dean at UWMC. In those positions, I saw various beneficial and seriously damaging effects of budget and policy changes.
As the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee moves through its list of issues in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan, public education advocates are still hoping that a proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System will be reduced, in spite of the lack of additional tax revenue to offset the cuts.
Wisconsin lawmakers aren’t the only ones considering major funding cuts to higher education.
Students cramming for finals aren’t the only ones in the University of Wisconsin System losing sleep this week.
Reader Diane Beversdorf in her recent letter to the editor seems to have overlooked an important point in her response to University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Chancellor Bernie Patterson’s April 23 column. She cites Patterson’s statement about university leaders recognizing the need to operate more like a business; she then lists several ways in which businesses need to focus on the bottom line — “all of which are required to remain profitable.”
The chancellors of the two largest University of Wisconsin System campuses say that while they expect budget cuts, they might not end up being as deep as those that Gov. Scott Walker has proposed.
The Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 to reduce Walker’s proposed cut to the Educational Communications Board. The state agency works with the University of Wisconsin System to operate Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television, among other duties.
Authority over a decades-old agreement that allows college students from Minnesota and Wisconsin to avoid paying nonresident tuition when they cross the border to attend a public school is up for grabs Tuesday in the Legislature’s powerful budget-writing Joint Finance Committee.
On any given day, Lavern Georgson could be helping a farmer with a sick cow or troubleshooting a problem with someone’s backyard Koi pond.
University Ridge, a top-ranked public golf course at County Road PD and County Road M in the city of Madison, was developed and given to the university by the University of Wisconsin Foundation in 1991, university officials reported in response to a records request … the terms of this gift contain an automatic reversion provision that returns the property to the Foundation if sold within 30 years of the gift, Lisa Hull, a special assistant to the vice chancellor in the Office of University Relations, said in an email.
Walker’s office and his Department of Administration released the documents Friday in response to a State Journal records request made three months ago. They include previously released emails from UW officials asking the budget office as early as Jan. 20 — two weeks before Walker introduced his 2015-17 budget — and again on Jan. 29 to restore the Wisconsin Idea language.
Staff editorial: The Legislature could delay a $5 property tax cut to fund more UW aid. Most people wouldn’t notice the modest change. The Legislature could slow a sweetheart tax cut for manufacturers. It could accept more federal money for Medicaid. What our state leaders shouldn’t do is weaken UW System just as the economy is improving. Doing so will slow our state in the global race for knowledge, entrepreneurs, private investment and good-paying jobs.
Grant Petty, a UW–Madison atmospheric sciences professor and president of PROFS Inc., tells the paper taking away faculty tenure and shared governance is like asking the Green Bay Packers to play without pads … such a move would strip professors and staff of basic tenets of job stability and satisfaction that have made UW a go-to destination and would cause an exodus of top talent … UW System president Ray Cross has vowed to resign if those key policies go away, an expression of his confidence that they won’t.
Saturday, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside celebrates the most students ready to graduate in our history. Close to 500 men and women are eligible to participate in our spring commencement. In the past five years, we have awarded more undergraduate and graduate degrees than during any other five-year period.
The controversy over how to fund the University of Wisconsin System goes on. The current proposal is for a cut of $300 million and a tuition freeze. It’s clear that the proposal as it stands will have a negative impact on the quality of education in our universities.
In the meantime, no one thinks the lawmakers can undo the $300 million cut the governor wants to give the University of Wisconsin schools. They have decided the added flexibility Walker proposed as a means of having the schools find ways to cut costs should be dumped. So the UW will get all the negatives of the Walker budget and none of the proposed positives.
Governor Scott Walker is in agreement with Republican legislative leaders, on where the budget focus should be, now that new projections show no real increase in state revenues. But he said he wants them to reconsider his plan to provide the University of Wisconsin System with greater autonomy.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker says his proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System is “manageable” and “realistic” if UW is given some flexibilities to save money.
Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday that legislative consideration of a financing plan for a new arena in downtown Milwaukee will have to wait until other big-ticket issues such as K-12 school funding and cuts to the University of Wisconsin System are dealt with first.
Five years can seem like an eternity in the world of major college athletics.
A new report says no additional revenue is expected to help lawmakers craft Wisconsin’s two-year state budget.
The plan to give the University of Wisconsin System broad autonomy from state regulations is dead.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin tax collections won’t grow beyond earlier projections, state lawmakers were told Wednesday, forcing Republican legislative leaders to consider an accounting move to fulfill their promises to undo Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $127 million cut to public schools.
Chancellor Rebecca Blank updated University of Wisconsin’s Faculty Senate Monday on recent developments to raise money to make up for the deficit created by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million budget cut to the UW System.
