Category: Top Stories

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.

For the second time in Gov. Scott Walker’s gubernatorial tenure, a proposal to split off the University of Wisconsin System or its flagship UW-Madison from state control has died at the hands of the Republican Legislature, according to a top lawmaker.

The state’s two largest chambers of commerce Tuesday joined forces to warn that Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System could hurt the economy.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to give the University of Wisconsin System more independence from state law and oversight won’t pass this year, while other flexibilities and the level of funding for higher education remain up for debate, co-chairs of the Legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee said Tuesday.

The Republican co-chairs of the state Legislature’s budget committee say they won’t support Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to turn the University of Wisconsin System into a public authority.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s plan to create a public authority for the University of Wisconsin System will not gain the approval of the legislature’s budget committee, according to the panel’s co-chairs.

Republicans in the state Legislature are abandoning a proposal by GOP Gov. Scott Walker to spin off the University of Wisconsin System as a separate government authority, but said they are committed to giving campuses more flexibilities to manage budget cuts.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) hasn’t even gotten his proposed budget cuts passed into law yet, but that’s not stopping the state’s prestigious public university system from moving to lay off staff, prompting fears of a “massive brain drain.”

It is very unlikely the state legislature will restore much of the $300 million proposed cuts to the University of Wisconsin System in the state budget. That’s what Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) told WKOW TV in Madison, but UW System President Ray Cross isn’t buying it.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents in the new Wisconsin Survey are against a proposed $300 million cut in the state budget for the University of Wisconsin System. Support or opposition to the idea appears to break down along party lines.

MENASHA – Faced with $6.5 million in budget reductions, leaders and staff members at University of Wisconsin Colleges — including the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley — searched for answers Monday at a town hall meeting.

Nearly 50 positions at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse will be cut in order to balance an estimated $7.6 million reduction in state funding.

“It has a very large but a very complicated budget that’s funded from many many different sources. The state source though, is an important source and we’re seeing a cut of this size that is over a two year period will have an impact,” former UW Whitewater Assoc. Dean Richard Haven said. That impact could mean 400 jobs eliminated at UW-Madison.

UW-Madison plans to cut 400 jobs across campus — most of them open positions that won’t be filled — as well as drop some programs and collect an additional $3.5 million yearly from its athletics department to deal with Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million, two-year cut to the University of Wisconsin System, chancellor Rebecca Blank announced Friday.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison will eliminate about 400 positions, most of them vacant, and will close or restructure several academic programs across campus over the next two years in response to anticipated state budget cuts, Chancellor Rebecca Blank announced on her blog Friday.

UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank announced a package of drastic program and staffing cuts on Friday, as a response to Governor Scott Walker’s $300 million, two-year cut to the University of Wisconsin System.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank says she has a plan to cut about 400 staff positions if the Legislature approves Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million budget cut to the UW System.

A new poll says the Wisconsin public doesn’t support the size of the Gov. Scott Walker’s  proposed cuts to the University of Wisconsin System and public K-12 education.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Rochester Republican, said Tuesday that the cap makes sense because parents wouldn’t have to worry about huge tuition hikes. But he says he still doesn’t support autonomy because he doubts the regents will use it to run the system more efficiently and cheaply.

Gov. Scott Walker has officially asked the Legislature to keep the University of Wisconsin’s guiding principle known as the “Wisconsin Idea” intact.

Gov. Scott Walker is using a cleanup letter on his budget to propose limiting tuition increases at the University of Wisconsin System to the rate of inflation once the current tuition freeze expires.

Gov. Scott Walker lent his support Monday to an embattled plan to decouple the University of Wisconsin System from state control with added state protections against tuition hikes for Wisconsin residents, but a key lawmaker still sees no hope for its passage this session. “I think it is dead in our caucus,” said Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, who’s co-chairman of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee. “I believe there will be enough support to remove it.”

Gov. Scott Walker wants to modify his state budget plan to cap University of Wisconsin System resident undergraduate tuition increases according to inflation, according to a letter his administration sent to the leaders of the Legislature’s finance committee on Monday.

The UW System Board of Regents voted Friday to approve tuition increases for some students at UW-Madison as well as at schools in La Crosse, Milwaukee, Parkside, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point, Stout and Whitewater during a meeting at UW-Waukesha.