One day after Gov. Jim Doyle delivered his budget proposal from the Capitol, University of Wisconsin students and faculty responded Wednesday to his plans to ensure the university “remains one of the most affordable.”

“For the first time in more than 10 years, my budget will add more state money to the UW and financial aid than it will to the Department of Corrections,” Doyle said in his address.

UW Chancellor John Wiley said Doyle’s overall proposal, if passed, would positively affect the university. However, he expressed concern over what would happen if the proposed savings turn out to be unrealistic.

“We’ve been reallocating for so long there’s not much else to reallocate,” Wiley said.

Doyle said he planned to hold the increase of tuition between 5 and 7 percent, which Wiley said was much less than in the past. Wiley added Doyle’s proposed increase of 34 percent in financial aid would help to offset the costs of tuition.

“It addresses a big concern of the faculty and the students,” Wiley said.

Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell said the increase in financial aid was vital for UW to remain accessible to qualified students.

“It is critical so that we remain affordable to all our students,” Bazzell said.

However, chair of Associated Students of Madison Cedric Lawson said the tuition increases were bittersweet and he would still like to see tuition percentages decrease in the future.

“I think the increases are better than they were before, but I think they could be more modest,” Lawson said.

Wiley added that Doyle’s new Star Faculty initiative, which will allow UW to pay competitive salaries, will greatly help to retain the university’s highly qualified faculty.

In addition, Doyle proposed to “reduce the number of administrators by 200 … but increase faculty by another 125.”

Wiley said the number of UW faculty has been decreasing, so Doyle’s proposal would help to add needed faculty.

According to Bazzell, the system budget cuts, if passed, would affect the UW campus the most because of its large size in proportion to other UW system schools.

“When there are cuts at the system level, we are typically asked to absorb 30 to 40 percent of that,” Bazzell said.

In his address, Doyle also proposed to allocate financial-aid funds from general-purpose revenue (GPR) instead of UW’s auxiliary funds. This is positive news for students, according to director of financial aid, Steve Van Ess, because auxiliary funding is basically money taken from students’ pockets.

Van Ess added the proposal for GPR funds to cover financial-aid costs would help to protect the neediest students from tuition increases.

“It is very good that the university’s auxiliary funds are not being tapped to pay for the students’ financial aid,” Van Ess said.

Doyle’s proposed budget will be reviewed by the Joint Finance Committee and must be passed by the state Legislature by June 30.