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The UW Budget: From bad to worse in 2 days.

Friday, October 21st, 2011

My posting on Wednesday on the reductions in state funding of UW was incorrect. I relied on a number of news accounts (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, WSJ, etc.) for the information. Now, having read Vice Chancellor Bazzell’s memo, it is clear that the cuts will be far worse than originally reported.

To recap, news accounts in all major media initially stated that the UW-System would be subject to about $65 million in cuts over the biennium as a part of an overall state budget reduction of $174 million. (UW-Madison’s share of the reduction would be $24.6 million.) The Dept of Administration, which apportions the cuts, did not explain why UW would shoulder 37% of the reduction despite the fact that it constitutes only 7% of the state budget.

Today, the other shoe dropped. The other shoe in this instance is the probable loss of $111 million over the biennium; our share of an overall budget reduction of $300 million. Madison’s loss would be $42.6 million. This loss alone could not be “made up” if tuition for every student was increased $1000/ year. This is, of course, in addition to the $250 million loss to the System (and Madison) in the budget passed last summer. In contrast, aid to local government ($1.9 billion) is only nicked ($3 million) as is aid to K-12 education, the biggest item in the budget. Under the “$300 million scenario”, the UWS would still lose a disproportionate share of its state funding at a ratio of 5:1.

While the budget reduction of $300 million has not been ordered, agencies have been told to prepare for the loss. The reduction will be ordered if tax revenues do not increase in the next few months.

Under the $300 million reduction scenario, the Dept of Corrections would reduce its budget by $23 million or 1.4%. This would result in the UW receiving 6.7% of the state budget and the Dept of Corrections receiving 6.8%. The trend lines have crossed.

	UW System
	Budget	% of Total State Budget	% of Agency Budget
Before Cut	$2,095,251,600	7.2%
Cut	$163,900,000		7.8%
After Cut	$1,931,351,600	6.7%

	Department of Corrections
	Budget	% of Total State Budget	% of agency budget
Before Cut	$1,994,614,400	6.9%
Cut	$27,924,602		1.4%
After Cut	$1,966,689,798	6.8%

DMA

Posted in State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System | 5 Comments »

UW System may soon trail Department of Corrections in share of state funding.

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

For many years there has been an interest in the ever-increasing state funding of corrections (aka “prisons”) and the simultaneous decline in the proportion of state funding of higher education. While there is reasonable debate about whether the state contribution has in fact increased in real dollars or the inestimable value of “stopping crime”, there remains enormous symbolic value in the primacy of being the state function that receives the most money. Its the old, “we’re number one!”

With the announcement of the new round of budget cuts ($65 million for the System, $13 million for Corrections), I reviewed LFB publications to see if indeed the UW is still #1 in the purse, if not the hearts, of Wisconsin.

I found (see table below) that although UWS funding will be $48M greater than that of Corrections (after the cuts), they are not only in the same ballpark, they are almost on the same base. UWS receives 7% of the total share of state funding while Corrections receives 6.8%. The budgetary trend lines of the two agencies have nearly merged because the budget reduction of UW is four times greater (as a percent of their budget) than that imposed on Corrections.

With additional inequitable budget reductions probable due to inflated revenue estimates, will Badger fans yell, “We’re Number Two! We’re Number Two!”

	UW System
	Budget	% of Total State Budget	% of Agency Budget
Before Cut	$2,095,251,600	7.2%
Cut	$65,769,847		3.1%
After Cut	$2,029,481,753	7.0%

	Department of Corrections
	Budget	% of Total State Budget	% of agency budget
Before Cut	$1,994,614,400	6.9%
Cut	$13,400,479		0.7%
After Cut	$1,981,213,921	6.8%

DMA

Posted in State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Invitation to planning discussion: Building an effective organization for faculty and staff.

Monday, August 29th, 2011

The following event is likely to be of interest to S&W readers – Ed.

Save the date!

Saturday, Sept 24 — 10 AM- 3 PM

Building an Effective Organization for Faculty and Staff

If you read Sifting and Winnowing then you recognize that the events of last semester underscore the need for a viable organization of University staff and faculty. The Wisconsin University Union (WUU) invites you to a planning discussion about what that might look like. We’d like to hear from campus employees what they’d like that organization to focus on and do.

What issues should this organization prioritize? (more…)

Posted in Academic freedom, Collective bargaining, Compensation, Shared governance, State worker benefits, State-University Relations, Uncategorized | No Comments »

A graduate student asks, what does Budget Repair Bill really mean for us?

Monday, July 18th, 2011

On June 15, 2011, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled to lift Judge Sumi’s injunction on the Budget Repair Bill giving the state the go-ahead to implement the bill as law. During the protests of February through May, people came together in attempt to stop the bill from becoming law – but now it is law and that’s that. In the media, I didn’t see any uproar, or questioning of this new law’s impact, or calls to know what’s in store for us in the future — I found just two (1, 2) recent articles which recounted the push-back and feelings of solidarity of the protests and emphasized the need to remember these feelings and our (i.e. public employees) connections to each other. Both articles, however, treated the fight for our collective bargaining rights as being over — we should look back on our solidarity and our fight and know that even though we “lost,” we tried our darnedest. But the assault isn’t over — it’s just beginning. Things are going to change and people’s lives are going to be affected – we just don’t know exactly how or when. (more…)

Posted in Collective bargaining, College costs, Compensation, Graduate student affairs, State worker benefits, State-University Relations, The UW-Madison Campus | 2 Comments »

Politics and UW-Madison: Confronting the new reality

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

It is easy — indeed, it is natural after a series of crises to mistake a momentary calm for a return to normalcy. We, of course, want the threats to subside and to return to the way things once were which, even if they weren’t quite perfect, were familiar.

In that vein, we’d like to look back and regard the events of last semester as an aberration and not indicative of the life we live now or how we will live in the future. We’d rather not consider all of the facts and face the new reality: that we no longer know what life will be like in the future other than that it will probably be worse in some distinct but as of yet, unknown, ways. But “the facts get in the way” of our attempts to ignore our new and discomforting reality. (more…)

Posted in Collective bargaining, Compensation, State worker benefits, State-University Relations, The University Budget, The UW-Madison Campus | 6 Comments »

UW System pulls plug on all employee organizations

Friday, June 24th, 2011

On Thursday, UW System notified all UW employee organizations that it would stop collecting dues effective in August. This will affect PROFS, ASPRO, WUU, and the Council for Supervisory Non-Classified Staff as well as the unions (AFSCME, TAA, etc.). (Note: UW Madison administration was not notified of this action until after the fact.)

While it had been anticipated that the state would end the deduction for the unions, the end of the deduction for organizations that do not engage in collective bargaining comes as a surprise. In Walker’s initial budget, the prohibiting language was limited to “labor organizations” which are defined as “an organization that engages in collective bargaining.” However, when the bill was amended in Joint Finance a more expansive amendment was added that prohibited dues deduction for any employee organization other than those representing public safety employees. (more…)

Posted in Collective bargaining, Compensation, State worker benefits, State-University Relations, The University System | No Comments »

Review of NBP Controversy in Inside Higher Ed

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

In Inside Higher Ed‘s otherwise balanced and comprehensive review of the NBP and its remains, one statement stands out as demonstrably false and ultimately self-serving: Near the end of the very long article, on the issue of continued state support for higher education, Martin says, “We have laid the groundwork for increased investment in higher education when the economy in Wisconsin begins to grow again.” (more…)

Posted in State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 10 Comments »

System and Madison: A little data

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

Bashing System and the Regents has joined football, hockey and basketball as a major sport on the UW-Madison campus, including in (often grossly insulting) comments on this blog. As Sara Goldrick-Rab has just pointed out (here), players in this game often have no data of any kind.

One theme is that System bleeds state funding to Madison, diverts money from the flagship to other campuses and that as budgets get cut, Madison suffers disproportionately. There’s evidence on this: the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau has just provided vast amounts about higher ed funding in Wisconsin. (Here are the links, with a little context.) #690 lays out the material on public authority. Check out this passage from paragraph 10 (p. 4):

When adjusted for inflation, state funding provided for UW-Madison and for all other UW System institutions decreased from 1990-91 to 2010-11. Over that period of time, state funding for UW-Madison decreased by 2.8% while state funding for all other UW System institutions decreased by 6.8%. At the same time, enrollment at UW-Madison increased by 1.5% while enrollments at all other UW System institutions increased by 23.4%. When these increases in enrollment are controlled for, state funding for UW-Madison decreased by 4.2% while state funding for all other UW System institutions decreased by 24.4%.

As I understand this, over the last 20 years, Madison has had a tiny increase in enrollments while other campuses have grown by a quarter, yet other campuses have been hit far harder by budget cuts.

Posted in State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 12 Comments »

The dead parrot has finally fallen off its perch.

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

Three weeks ago, S&W contributor Joe Salmons shared his conviction, apparently based on his conversations with key lawmakers, that Public Authority was already dead.

Despite that spreading belief, which was also shared by Paul Fanlund of the Capital Times and others, lobbying for the NBP continued unabated, with one observer likening the Public Authority to Monty Python’s dead parrot.

Subsequently, the “compromise” proposal was floated that UW-Madison remain within the System but get its own Board of Trustees, an idea that was sharply criticized by almost everyone who knew anything about it, including former UW-Madison adminstrator Harry Peterson.

A report this afternoon by the Cap Times’ Todd Finkelmeyer seems to make the deaths of both the Public Authority and the two-boards proposal official:

Walker’s plan to split off UW-Madison is dead

With that news, the closing comments from Joe Salmon’s May 5 post seem worth reposting: (more…)

Posted in State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 17 Comments »

Commentary on the creation of a separate governing board for the UW-Madison while UW-Madison remains within the UW System Administration

Friday, May 20th, 2011

[The following article was provided to legislators this week by Dr. Harry Peterson. It is reproduced here with his permission. - Ed.]

I understand that there is no significant legislative support to break away the UW-Madison from the UW System and provide the UW-Madison its own governing board. I have been told that a “compromise” approach would provide a governing board for the UW-Madison and have that university remain in the UW System.

I do not know with whom such a “compromise” would be struck, but, this idea fails badly and is seriously flawed. (more…)

Posted in State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 7 Comments »

Sifting and Winnowing