OPINION & EDITORIAL
Debate over Regents’ decision highlights Governor Doyle’s hypocrisy
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by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Monday, September 29, 2003
The Board of Regents met via teleconference Sept. 2 to pass a new set of pay ranges that apply to the 35 top executives in the UW System. Most of the new pay ranges increase the minimums and maximums - but in a couple of cases lower them - for system leaders, chancellors and vice chancellors.
The Regents decision is not without reason. According to comparative analyses, pay within the UW System is relatively low compared to that of other university systems. The UW System recently lost chancellors at UW-Milwaukee and UW-Stevens Point to higher-paying out-of-state positions.
Yet the Regents received considerable criticism from nearly every elected official inside the Capitol, including Gov. Jim Doyle and Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer (R?West Bend). While some officials, like Panzer, have criticized the decision because it was made behind closed doors, many, such as Doyle, have referred to it as reprehensible in light of budget cuts and tuition hikes.
We pause to consider these accusations and criticisms. In a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article, Doyle called the Regents’ decision a “tough sell, when tuitions have gone up and (with) the kind of cuts that have been made.”
But it was Doyle himself who made these “kinds of cuts”. He slashed state funding to the UW System by $250 million in the most recent budget, forcing the Regents to cut class availability, fire employees, raise tuition at UW and, now, increase pay ranges in order to keep some of the UW System’s most valuable officials. This is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Doyle should be ashamed of his comments. As a leader who claimed to make education a top priority, Doyle made the biggest cut to the UW System in its history. No other state agency or institution received a cut larger than that for the UW System. Such a cut continues a trend we had hoped this Governor would have reversed. Over the past twelve years, the state has steadily decreased the amount of money it gives to fund the UW System, culminating in this year’s history-making $250 million cut. Our expectations for Doyle were obviously too high.
This is not about whether the Regents should have raised the pay range ? they need to do such things in order to maintain a high quality system in the face of budget cuts. It is not about the way in which the decision was made ? proposed legislation requiring published, recorded roll call votes will certainly fix this problem.
This is about hypocrisy, pure and simple. Governor Doyle is its leading subject.
