According to budget numbers released by the Walker administration on Thursday, the next state budget faces a $2.2 billion shortfall between what agencies want to spend and what the state is expected to generate in tax revenue.
A report published by a Dallas-based libertarian think tank and Wisconsin’s conservative MacIver Institute calls for changes to the state’s health care benefit program for public retirees.
Back in the 1980s, three economics professors, Robert Wilson of Stanford, Paul Milgrom of Northwestern and R. Preston McAfee University of Texas, worked together conducting research on “game theory and auctions.” It was just the sort of seemingly trivial, silly-sounding research that critics of universities point to, but it became crucial in 1993, when Congress granted the Federal Communications Commission authority to auction portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The three profs helped design the auction, helping pave the way for the telecommunications revolution.
The day after last Tuesday’s election didn’t exactly inspire confidence for backers of the University of Wisconsin System and its request for a funding boost of $95 million in the next two-year cycle. Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, who’s co-chairman of the state’s budget committee, called the request a “tough sell. ”At the same news conference, Nygren’s colleague Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who’s speaker of the Assembly, said faculty should focus on research that would benefit the state’s economy, not the “ancient mating habits of whatever.” The remark was seen as condescending by many at UW-Madison, a research giant that brings $1.2 billion a year in federal funding to the state. The same day, a different effort got no headlines but could be significant: UW-Madison emailed all of its in-state alumni with a plea. “Right now, UW-Madison needs your voice more than ever,” the email said.
Then there is Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, threatening to tie University of Wisconsin funding to job creation. The university is not a job training school; it is a world-class research institution that is providing us the evidence to implement policies to combat climate change and eradicate disease through stem cell research.
It may come as no surprise that state Republican leaders, in the flush of electoral victory, are targeting University of Wisconsin funding in the next legislative session. But the scorn for the university evident in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ post-election remarks struck some observers.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank arrived in July 2013 amid an uproar at the Capitol over hundreds of millions in cash balances carried over by the state’s public universities without full disclosure, including sizable tuition balances that amassed alongside annual tuition hikes during a recession.
The co-chairman of the Legislature’s powerful finance committee doesn’t sound too optimistic that the University of Wisconsin System will get the additional $95 million it wants in the next state budget.
MADISON — Gov. Scott Walker wants to pass his second-term agenda quickly through a Legislature controlled by Republicans who tightened their grip on the majority with wins in the midterm election.
Gov. Scott Walker is touring the state’s technical colleges rather than speak at a meeting of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.
An emerging dilemma at UW-Madison involves the state government’s two-year ban on raising tuition, not only for in-state undergraduates, but for out-of-state students of all descriptions including professional school students in fields such as medicine, veterinary science, business and pharmacy.
Higher education: Walker takes pride in freezing tuition at the University of Wisconsin System for two years and plans to do so again. That no doubt plays well with university students and their parents, but the fact is that such a continued freeze could hurt the system?s ability to attract and retain faculty. UW schools are a bargain, with average costs, and quality doesn?t come cheap.
Among the Republicans? priorities are “course correction” for the state Government Accountability Board, providing funding for free GED testing, expanding public school open enrollment and voucher school programs, increasing access to classes through a state-funded digital learning program for rural schools and extending a tuition freeze for the University of Wisconsin system.
It took 105 days, 50 teleconferences, a team of UW administrators and one consultant to complete a fiscal year 2014 (FY14) financial report for the UW System, approved last week by the UW Board of Regents.
The University of Wisconsin – Superior has had some financial challenges lately, including cutting graduate programs this year due to budget constraints, but the UW system president says they?re working to turn that around.
Two years after a public outcry over high cash balances kept by the University of Wisconsin System and its campuses, a report released Monday indicates they are carrying about the same amount of money ? just being much clearer about its purpose.
Campuses across the University of Wisconsin System collectively held $175 million in reserve funds as of June that aren?t tied to specific programs or projects, a drop of $40 million from a year ago as schools tapped into those funds to cover expenses as called for by the state Legislature.
If the deep cuts to the UW System in the state?s last budget are maintained, education programs at UW-Madison will be cut 4 percent across the board, Chancellor Rebecca Blank said in a meeting with student media Thursday.
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, says the governor?s arguments that he has helped college students with a tuition freeze is ?putting lipstick on the pig.?
Plans include continuing the freeze on University of Wisconsin System tuition and expanding the Flexible Option.
When Rebecca Blank moved into her corner Bascom Hall office last summer, the University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor also stepped into a state political environment rife with ill feelings and mistrust that, in recent years, had washed over onto campus affairs.
La Crosse, WI (WXOW) – Governor Scott Walker met with students today at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse to highlight the two year tuition freeze.
Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday promised to continue a tuition freeze at University of Wisconsin campuses and asked students to vote for him in the upcoming November election.
The state faces a nearly $1.8 billion structural deficit heading into the next biennial budget cycle, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported Monday.
Declining state revenues are expected to push the state?s structural deficit to almost $1.8 billion for the 2015-17 biennium, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported Monday.
Wisconsin tax collections for the past year came in 2 percent short of estimates, the state Department of Revenue reported Thursday, news that won?t require immediate emergency action by the Legislature but that puts the state?s budget on track to be out of balance next year.
Democrats see problems for Governor Walker in the latest state revenue estimates. Revenues are off by $281 million for 2014, according to tax collection numbers released by the state Department of Revenue.
The latest numbers from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue show tax revenues lagged expectations by $281 million last fiscal year, sending the state?s two-year budget into a projected shortfall.
The University of Wisconsin System?s Board of Regents has approved asking Gov. Scott Walker for $95 million in additional tax dollars in the next state budget.
The University of Wisconsin System?s Board of Regents has approved asking Gov. Scott Walker for $95 million in additional tax dollars in the next state budget.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) ? The University of Wisconsin System?s regents on Thursday approved asking Gov. Scott Walker for $95 million in additional tax dollars in the state?s next two-year budget after system President Ray Cross assured them the money would help boost the state?s economy.
MADISON (AP) ? The University of Wisconsin System?s regents on Thursday approved asking Gov. Scott Walker for $95 million in additional tax dollars in the state?s next two-year budget after system President Ray Cross assured them the money would help boost the state?s economy.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross says more resources are needed to transform the state?s higher education system into a bigger driver of the state?s economy, a request that comes at a time when Gov. Scott Walker says no new revenues will be available.
University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approves a request for an additional $95 million in the next two-year state budget.
New University of Wisconsin System president Ray Cross plans to ask lawmakers for a $95 million funding increase in the next two-year budget cycle to pay for some new initiatives and continue others that he said will help power up the statewide system?s economic development engine.
The University of Wisconsin System would seek a $95.2 million boost in state funding for a new initiative to more closely align education and research with the economic needs of the state, under a biennial budget proposal from UW System President Ray Cross.
University of Wisconsin System officials want Gov. Scott Walker to give them an additional $95 million in tax dollars in the next state budget to fund a new plan to create jobs, boost graduation numbers and deal with a tuition freeze.
The UW Board of Regents could decide today whether to ask for another $95 million in the next two-year state budget.
Shortfalls in state funding meant that more than 41,000 Wisconsin students did not receive need-based financial aid for which they were eligible, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau reports.
Sadly, as I enter my senior of college, I?m watching my current school, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, become Whitefish Bay High ? a great public school that promises success after graduation but whose access is determined less and less by a student?s hard work and innate ability and more than ever before by a student?s capacity to pay for school.
UW-Madison paid out the most of any agency, approving 1,743 payments worth about $6 million. The average payment at UW-Madison represented about a 7.8 percent increase over the employee?s prior salary. Spokesman Bob Lavigna attributed the higher spending to the university?s large budget and said the school spent about the same percent of its budget on merit raises as Corrections did.
While the record $1.2 trillion in student loan debt has attracted election-year calls for reform in Madison and Washington, D.C., Wisconsin is ending a program that has helped students like Toshia Spindler go to UW-La Crosse.
A tuition freeze at a time when higher education is too costly is at best a Band-Aid, not a cure. If elected officials and UW System administrators are serious, they must address the onerous burden created by student loan debt, as President Obama and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., are attempting to do at the federal level.
Quoted: Susan Zahner, associate professor of nursing; Patrick Remington, associate dean for public health (SMPH).
The extended tuition freeze would mark another significant departure from recent practice at the System. Prior to the tuition freeze mandated by the Republican-controlled state Legislature starting with the 2013-2014 school year, the System had hiked tuition at four-year campuses 5.5 percent annually in each of the previous six years, the maximum annual increase allowed by law. System spokesman John Diamond said Wednesday that tuition now is viewed as ?a revenue source of last resort.?
The Legislature?s finance committee approved a new policy governing University of Wisconsin System surpluses on Tuesday, wrapping up a nasty clash between Republicans and UW officials over the system?s massive balances.
The Legislature?s finance committee is set to vote on the University of Wisconsin System?s new policy for reporting surpluses.
Burke said she wants to hold the line on tuition increases in the University of Wisconsin System. The system is already under a two-year tuition freeze, but Burke disagreed with Walker’s recent proposal for an additional two-year freeze.
To any thoughtful observer of politics, one of the biggest frustrations is watching is just how politically popular some really bad ideas can be. A perfect example is Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal to freeze tuition increases within the University of Wisconsin System for four straight years.
Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal to extend his tuition freeze on all universities within the UW System threatens the survival of one of Wisconsin?s most cost-effective universities, the UW Colleges.
Students could have their first two years of public university paid for by the state, according to a plan proposed by University of Wisconsin-Madison professors.
Gov. Scott Walker on Friday called for extending a tuition freeze at the University of Wisconsin System by two years, citing new figures that show the System should end this fiscal year with $1.1 billion left over.
Wisconsin just jumped from fourth worst to sixth best in the nation for letting the public peruse its checkbook.
The Sunshine Week fortune cookies and their messages serve as a reminder to those elected or appointed to do the public?s business that they work for you ? the voting and taxpaying public. UW-Madison and the UW System did not always remember this wisdom.
The SSTI (State Science and Technology Institute) praised the UW-Madison?s investment in its ?Discovery to Product? initiative to help move good ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace. That?s an idea funded, in part, by the Legislature?s UW System Incentive Grants. Only this month, the UW System and WEDC announced creation of a $2 million fund to help transfer technology from other system campuses.
Students will vote in March on a referendum to increase a fee future Badgers pay for recreational sports facilities to pay for $223 million in renovations and expansions to the campus? aging fields, gyms, pools and tracks. The proposal was explained Thursday to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents capital planning and budget committee.
Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, said about 763,000 Wisconsin residents are burdened by student loan debt. Passing the legislation, which he called the first of its kind nationally, would provide an incentive for graduates of state colleges to remain in Wisconsin after graduation.
Last year, when the tuition freeze was announced by Gov. Scott Walker in La Crosse, like most students, I was excited. … But diving deeper into the numbers, students have to take this freeze with a grain of salt.
?Research suggests that supply-side economics ? where a tax cut actually generates more revenue ? doesn?t really hold true,? said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden.
Wisconsin?s finances are more than $900 million stronger through mid-2015 than previously expected, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported Thursday.
