Category: Top Stories

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.