The state’s $1.1 billion budget deficit has impacted all areas of the state.
Lawmakers and economists said the deficit is a result of a slowing state economy and the effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Gov. Scott McCallum introduced a plan January 22 to reduce the budget deficit by cutting $51 million in funding to the UW System, phasing out shared revenue and borrowing money from the state’s tobacco-settlement fund.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley told The Badger Herald that under the governor’s plan, a significant number of cuts would have come from UW-Madison.
“Madison makes up about a quarter of the UW System, and if the cuts were to be evenly distributed, Madison would have a 25 percent cut in funds,” Wiley said.
The plan was highly criticized by lawmakers and city officials, who said eliminating shared revenue would have meant the end of garbage and recycling.
On March 7 the Board of Regents, upset at the proposed cuts to the university, announced plans to halt undergraduate admissions.
The Assembly then voted to increase cuts to UW by $70.5 million. The Republican-controlled Assembly shifted nearly $30 million in state funds to smaller communities. Lawmakers also voted to use the majority of the state’s tobacco-settlement fund to repair the deficit.
The budget bill then went to the Democrat-controlled Senate. In their version of the bill, $88 million in funding was restored to UW, tuition was capped at 8 percent and financial aid increased by $1 million.
Mike Browne, spokesman for Sen. Chuck Chvala, D-Madison, told The Badger Herald the differences in the two Houses’ budget plans showed the philosophical differences between the Senate and Assembly.
“What Senate Democrats adopted today is a world of difference [from] what was proposed,” Browne said. “The way we grow our economy is through education.”
But not all lawmakers approved of the Senate’s plan. Rep. Steve Kestell, R-Town of Herman, said he was disappointed.
“Essentially, there is no attempt to address long-term problems like state spending,” Kestell told the Herald.
To create a compromise, lawmakers formed an eight-member bi-partisan conference committee. Members of the committee must hash out differences between the two Houses’ bills before they can be signed into law by the governor.
The conference committee has met 10 times and has only made three of the 320 compromises in its bills.
