Wednesday at the Capitol, a group of Wisconsin citizens, including teachers, students, legislators and members of various organizations joined in testifying in front of the State Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance in a hearing to deliberate Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget proposal.
“Our goal is this: to take the budget presented by the governor and tweak it a bit,” said committee member Rep. David Ward, R-Fort Atkinson.
University of Wisconsin Chancellor John Wiley spoke at the hearing, where he requested legislators not increase university tuition.
Pat Strickler, director of University Communications serving as spokesman for the chancellor, reported the three main points of Wiley’s testimony.
“The university has taken substantial cuts, not only in this budget, but in fact over the last several years,” Strickler said.
According to Strickler, the budget cuts proposed by the governor would impact students’ education, not just administrators’ jobs.
“The impact of the cuts in Doyle’s budgets go far beyond just cutting administration; there is simply not enough administration to take cuts,” Strickler said. “The cuts will be affecting teaching, with the likelihood of not replacing 50-60 staff members, and eliminating close to 300 courses.”
Wiley said he empathized with the budget troubles plaguing the state, but said budget cuts would disable the university’s ability to increase the economy, thus hurting future state budgets.
“We’re at the point where we really can’t take anymore cuts without jeopardizing the quality of education that we provide on the Madison campus,” Strickler said. “We agree that the way out of the deficit is grow the economy, and the university is key to doing that, so it is important that the legislature through the budget to cut the university so badly that it is not able to grow the economy in the future.”
Balancing the proposed $250 million budget to the UW System would be absorbed at least in some part by increased tuition. In Doyle’s original Budget proposal, he assigned a $250 increase per semester for UW System campuses, yet a $350 increase for Madison and Milwaukee campuses.
While some legislators have argues Doyle’s cuts are too large, most agree that some cuts are necessary. Ward said the final increase would likely fall in the middle.
“I would be very surprised if the tuition increase goes below $200 or went above $275,” Ward said.
Despite the tuition increase, Ward said he wished to still keep the quality of education high.
“Tuition should be reasonably increased, without hurting a students’ ability to go to class. We would rather get rid of an administrator or an assistant chancellor,” Ward said, adding that any further cuts in the University’s budget should not impact classes. “Right now, this budget is the governor’s budget cut increase. We don’t want to make it the Republican assembly’s budget cut increase,” Ward said. “We want to work within the proposal’s framework.
A large crowd turned out to support the governor’s funding increase for K-12 schools. Andy Gestland, a teacher from Reedsberg, emphasized that the budget increase for such schools is “just a start.”
“Don’t forget about the smaller districts,” Gestland said, relating to the committee the monetary need his school district is already in. “Our district can barely maintain the programs it has now. This unfair system has crippled us. There’s no where else to cut, folks.”
Cynthia Cromelee, the state legislator’s chair for the Wisconsin Parent Teacher’s Association also said budget cuts to K-12 schools should be avoided at all costs. “The PTA cannot have enough bake-sales, we cannot have enough fundraisers to make up for the deficit schools are looking at,” Cromelee said.
