The University of Wisconsin System is facing an additional $65.7 million in budget cuts throughout the next two years, bringing the total reduction in the budget to more than double the largest cut in the System’s history.
The Wisconsin Department of Administration called for cutting $174.3 million across the state in late December, with the UW System receiving the hardest hit at $46.1 million for 2012, 38 percent of the lapse.
“We had no idea, no way of knowing that the university would be asked to absorb such a disproportionate share of that $174 million of cuts,” UW System spokesperson David Giroux said. “The UW System usually covers 7 percent of state expenditures.”
In addition to the $250 million base in permanent reductions to UW funding in the state budget, the new budget lapse will bring the total loss in the System budget to $310 million over the next two fiscal years.
Darrell Bazzell, UW vice chancellor for Administration, said there is no campus-level plan for dealing with the cuts because the lapses are assigned to individual schools and colleges.
UW deans are currently in the process of deciding how these cuts will be assigned. The flagship’s College of Letters and Science will handle $4.3 million in cuts, with slashes to other colleges totaling $10 million. Giroux said these cuts are substantial at a time when students have already committed significant resources to the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates.
Giroux said the UW System will either be forced to reduce the number of people getting paid or leave vacancies open by not hiring. These staffing changes could lead to longer waiting lists for classes or lengthening the time students will need to acquire their degree.
“Ultimately, these funding reductions will result in students needing more time to get their degrees, which means they need to pay more, which means they will pay more debt, and that means you’re occupying a seat that a freshman can’t fill,” Giroux said. “It’s a cascading effect.”
UW’s School of Education recently decided to cut its master’s program for counseling psychology, as well as many one-credit physical education courses.
UW professor Bruce Wampold, chair of the counseling psychology department, said the deans have suspended admissions to the master’s program, but currently enrolled students will be able to finish the program.
“Budget cuts force one to look at where there are opportunities to make cuts, and unfortunately the person who ran the school counseling program left,” Wampold said. “So that was the only flexibility we had.”
University officials provided the state with a number of alternative scenarios, Giroux said, meeting in public and private to arrive at a compromise in the UW budget that would not be as erroneous to students.
In a memo to Wisconsin Budget Director Brian Hayes, UW System President Kevin Reilly proposed a compromise of an 18 percent cut, arguing it would be a more proportional share of the state budget cuts.
The memo outlined other key ways the budget cuts will impact students, including incurring more debt, delaying entry to UW and increased costs of getting a degree.
“When you’re talking about eliminating people, you’re talking about eliminating services,” Giroux said. “There’s no two ways about it.”
