Imagine a scenario where you squander a large chunk of your spending money on something you really don't need. It would be pretty tough to convince your parents, or anyone else, to give you more money, wouldn't it? This is similar to the situation between the UW System and the state government.
All told, the UW System receives over $2 billion in funding from the state to support its operations. State funding, along with tuition dollars, provides the UW with the budget they need to educate more than 162,000 young minds at Wisconsin's 13 four-year universities, two-year colleges and UW-Extension.
The number students are most concerned with, of course, is their tuition. But every single resident of the state should be equally concerned with the second number, state funding. Because that money comes directly from the pockets of the Wisconsin taxpayers, not only on April 15 (tax day) but every time you pay the state sales tax, gas tax, or beer tax. Everyone who pays taxes in Wisconsin has a stake in the university, and we all deserve to know that our money is being spent wisely.
Investing in the UW System continues to be a priority for Republicans in the state Legislature. The budget passed by the state Assembly last month increases the UW budget by $63 million over the next two years — a significant increase in tough financial times when other agencies are seeing budget reductions.
The Republican budget prioritizes academics over administration. We provided $25.8 million to fund specific UW requests for "growth initiatives" at individual campuses, including $2.12 million for science, technology, engineering and math instruction, $1.94 million for nursing education, $1.68 million for teacher education, and a $783,000 grant to increase student retention and graduation rates. Our budget also provides $6 million for high-demand faculty retention, to ensure that the best professors are rewarded for their efforts and not lured away by higher salaries at competing universities. We also provide $400,000 for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to improve access to health care in rural and urban areas.
These initiatives were not paid for by simply hiking tuition or raising taxes, either. Our budget cuts where the most money is wasted: the bureaucracy. We eliminated 17 unnecessary administrative positions, and included a 20 percent reduction in central administration funding. In tight budget times, everyone needs to sacrifice. But as long as we have a say, those sacrifices won't be in the classroom.
Our budget doesn't allow the UW administration to raise tuition in order to spend its way out of the problem. We instituted a 4 percent cap on tuition and fees, forcing the system to live within the means of the taxpayers, students and their families, instead of simply passing the bill on to them.
The governor and Senate Democrats have been running around the state saying that our budget "cuts" funding for the UW System. But the facts don't support their arguments: the combination of these two revenue sources (state support and student tuition) will provide the UW with approximately $138 million more over the next two years, which equates to a 3 percent increase. Even a Minnesota Gopher could tell you that a $13 million increase in funding is not a cut. The fact is that these folks are using fuzzy "Madison Math" and hollow political rhetoric to criticize our budget, when their time could be better spent working to find ways to eliminate waste and put more dollars in the classroom. One glaring example of fiscal negligence is the UW's recent announcement that it is abandoning work on an IT payroll project that has cost $26 million to date. That's a $26 million waste of your tuition dollars and of our taxpayer dollars.
UW is a big part of the economic engine of our state. The intellectual capital produced by giving young people the tools and the know-how to compete in the global economy is an asset to the state, and the launching point of millions of young lives. I have always supported the mission of the UW System and recognize the significant impact the university has on the economy of our state.
But the UW administration cannot be allowed to simply raise tuition or ask for more taxpayer dollars without being held responsible for their fiscal mistakes. As an elected official, I have a responsibility to defend how I spend the limited resources of the taxpayers. UW owes the same accountability to the students, their families, and every hard-working man and woman of Wisconsin.
Rep. Mike Huebsch, R-La Crosse, is speaker of the state Assembly and can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 608-266-3387.
