The University of Wisconsin System could be hit with $65.7 million more in budget cuts over the next two years, in addition to the $250 million in cuts originally projected.
This new cut would decrease funds across the system by $46.1 million during the 2011-12 year and $19.6 million 2012-13, totaling $65.7 million in addition to the $250 million in cuts to the System currently in the state budget, according to an email from UW Colleges Chancellor Ray Cross obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal.
UW Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell said Gov. Scott Walker was given the ability to issue the cuts through the provisional 2011-13 budget set in June.
The budget also slated UW to take a cut of $95 million, making up 38 percent of the original $250 million base reduction, Bazzell said.
He added this budget decrease will ask the System to cut even more over the same two-year time frame and affect UW more than the other UW System universities.
The email said the new cuts to the System account for approximately 38 percent of the total $174.3 million cuts made for all state agencies.
Cross said the numbers are only an estimate and could still increase.
“The way it has been expressed, this is the least amount [of cuts] that we are expecting,” Cross said. “[The lapse] could go as high as $300 million.”
Cross said it is unfair for the state to ask the UW System to take such a large hit, as the amount is disproportional from the percentage the System is funded.
Both Cross and Bazzell said they were unsure what these figures meant for their respective institutions.
“It is too early in the process to speculate what will be cut,” Bazzell said.
Until it is determined what the cuts will mean, neither could say how the cuts would be dealt with to limit the effect on educational quality, according to the UW System statement.
“We do not know how we can take these cuts without negatively affecting the education of our students and the expectations of their families for a quality experience,” the statement said.
If the state is expecting the UW System to cover two-fifths of the lapse, there will have to be drastic cuts within the System, Cross said.
“We will work together to find a way to meet the requirement if [we] have to do it,” he said. “Clearly there has to be drastic steps taken. What are those [steps]? [They could be] a wide range of things.”
UW System spokesperson David Giroux emphasized that there are still many unanswered questions at this point in time.
Giroux detailed the uncertainty surrounding how the lapse was structured the way it is and how the lapse is going to be managed.
Cross said he hopes further conversations with the Department of Administration would provide some answers and perhaps provide the means to negotiate decreasing the cut.
