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Category: State budget

Hall: Letter to the Assembly on the importance of the UW System

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

I am writing to thank you for your commitment to preserving the excellence and integrity of the University of Wisconsin System. As a native Wisconsinite, I have always felt tremendous pride that our humble, decent state has created and sustained one of the world’s premier institutions of higher learning and a state system that is the envy of the rest of the nation.

Chris Rickert: Students the likely losers in battle between Walker, UW

Wisconsin State Journal

I really hope the state budget wraps up soon, because I don’t know how much more flippant politicking I can take from Wisconsin’s governor/presidential candidate — nor how much more righteous indignation I can take from the officials of multimillion UW-Madison and its billion-dollar parent institution, the UW System.

Walker budget clips authority of state Building Commission

Capital Times

While the shift isn’t generating the amount of publicity as Walker’s plan to make the Natural Resources Board advisory, the change is significant since it consolidates key borrowing decisions within the Department of Administration, including bonding for transportation purposes. Under the Walker budget, the Building Commission would no longer meet in order to approve projects or the borrowing to make them happen. The commission — which by statute includes members of both political parties and is chaired by the governor — has traditionally met monthly. Instead, the commission would operate under what the budget proposal calls a “passive review process” where items are considered approved unless a majority of Building Commission members request a meeting.

Budget item to hide UW research is bad public policy

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Among the many other non-budgetary and bad policy items in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed biennial state budget, theres this: The governor is asking for a measure that could be used to hide certain research in the University of Wisconsin System. Two previous efforts in the last two years to thwart public access to such research failed, one rejected by the Joint Finance Committee and one by an Assembly committee.

Scott Walker’s statement on University of Wisconsin System proposal

Wisconsin State Journal

Statement from Gov. Scott Walker:“We encourage a vigorous debate over the idea of an authority to govern the University of Wisconsin system or the status quo, as well as a debate about what is the real amount of savings that can be generated by an authority, which we believe is worth $150 million a year.  However, there is no debate over the principles contained within the Wisconsin Idea.  We are, and have been, in agreement.

Scott Walker acknowledges misfire on Wisconsin Idea, says aides miscommunicated : Wsj

Wisconsin State Journal

Gov. Scott Walker acknowledged Thursday his administration botched the rewrite of the University of Wisconsin System’s mission statement in state law, blaming it on a miscommunication between his top aides and the state budget director’s office — which pushed the changes through even as top university officials objected.

A Wisconsin Idea: Gov. Scott Walker should think before he acts or talks

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On the dumb scale, dissing “The Wisconsin Idea” while youre governor of Wisconsin is somewhere just to the south of suggesting that the Green Bay Packers are such a suck on the states resources that they should move to the U.P. Now, of course, that notion might gain purchase if Mike McCarthy settles for a few more field goals from the one-yard line but thats another column.

Sen. Julie Lassa: Wisconsin families rely on University of Wisconsin System

Over the next few weeks, the Legislature will receive the full text of Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget, along with the analysis of the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. As I review those documents, I will be interested to see more details on Gov. Walker’s proposed changes to the University of Wisconsin System, including a $300 million budget cut over two years.