This month Gov. Jim Doyle will present his two-year budget plan to the state Legislature and attempt to patch a $3.2 billion budget hole.
In last week’s State of the State address, Doyle said no area of state spending would be exempt from cuts, leaving many state-funded areas such as the University of Wisconsin System wondering just how deeply cuts will affect them. But the governor said he sees the importance of higher learning.
“If we slash education, we risk undermining the asset that makes our state most attractive,” Doyle said.
Rep. Mark Gottlieb, R-Fort Washington, vice chair of the state Assembly’s Committee on Colleges and Universities, said he could still not speculate ballpark figures of UW System cuts and that he thinks no one will know what effect cuts will have on UW until Doyle presents his budget.
“There are going to be cuts to general funding,” Gottlieb said. “To a certain extent, in an environment like this, that is to be expected.”
Gottlieb said something has to give in the “pull and tug” of budget cuts.
“When you see how much money is available, then you have to make decisions,” Gottlieb said. “The top goal is trying to keep quality from suffering.”
Gottlieb said in order to keep quality from suffering in the UW System, two areas immediately come under fire — accessibility and tuition.
“Significant tuition increases are virtually assured,” said UW System Board of Regents president Guy Gottschalk.
The UW System operates on a $3.5 billion annual budget. State funding makes up $1 billion of that, and the remainder comes from private gifts, federal funds, money made by university programs and tuition.
“If the faculty and academic staff is cut and quality is to be maintained, there will have to be a proportionate reduction in enrollment,” Gottschalk said.
Gottschalk said that during Gov. Scott McCallum’s administration, a directive known as the “95 percent directive” went out to all state agencies asking for an estimation of how each organization would operate with a 5 percent budget cut.
Gottschalk said 5 percent of the UW System’s operating budget is about $50 million. The exercise found that with such a cut and no tuition increase, the system would be forced to reduce enrollment by 7,800 students, which in turn would mean another $23.6 million in lost tuition. The additional loss of revenue would cost 968 faculty and staff positions.
“We continue to refine those estimates,” Gottschalk said. “System administration is asking each university to look for where it can make its own cuts to their operating budgets.”
Gottschalk expressed frustration about last year’s budget cuts, when the UW System absorbed 23 percent of the cuts despite making up only 9 percent of state spending.
“Cuts have to be fair and reflect the state’s priorities,” Gottlieb said. “But they also have to take into account the different recoverability of funding cuts to different organizations.”
Gottlieb said that although cuts should not be overly disproportionate, they have to take into account other possible avenues for revenue that the UW System has, such as tuition and private gifts.
“I think everyone knows tuition will increase,” Gottlieb said. “That’s one available solution to cuts that may not be available to other programs.”
Gottschalk said private gifts to universities usually have a purpose intended by the donor, such as scholarship funds.
“The system is run on tuition and state and federal grants,” Gottschalk said. “We are not in the position to support the university on gift funds. If we could do that, we would.”