UW regents begin planning 'very difficult' budget year
The University of Wisconsin System's Board of Regents met Thursday on the top floor of Van Hise Hall, which provides a breathtaking view of the UW-Madison campus below.
And while the 18-member group that governs the UW System's institutions of higher education has more than 500 pages worth of materials to sift through on a wide range of topics before adjourning Friday, the main focus of this week's meetings is centered on submitting biennial budget requests to the state for 2009-11.
Perhaps no one has a better overall view of how budget concerns are impacting state education leaders than UW Regent Elizabeth Burmaster -- Wisconsin's superintendent of public instruction who also serves on the Wisconsin Technical College System's board.
"From this vantage point, I can see we are going to have a very difficult budget year," Burmaster said Thursday. "We all have to ensure that we work as educational institutions in partnership and collaboration, starting at pre-kindergarten through higher education and technical colleges.
"We can not allow anyone to be pitting us against each other, because it takes a complete system to be invested in if we're truly going to link in a line between what we do in the education system with our workforce development needs."
The Board of Regents is expected to approve Friday the submission of its 2009-11 Biennial Operating Budget request, which includes: an ongoing increase of $124.1 million in state general purpose revenues and tuition fund sources; an ongoing increase of $70.2 million in program revenue requests, which gives the UW System the authority to spend money generated from things like gifts, athletics and segregated fees; plus statutory language changes and performance measures.
The Board of Regents is also expected to approve the UW System's recommendations for the 2009-11 Capital Budget, which totals $794.3 million for 31 major projects and other maintenance, repair and renovation projects, plus advance enumeration of three other projects totaling $233 million for 2011-13 (to download more detailed information, visit the Web site.
Yet even after the budgets are submitted to the state for approval, they must pass through -- to name a few -- the Department of Administration, the Joint Finance Committee and the Assembly and the Senate before being signed by Gov. Jim Doyle.
In other words, Thursday was just a starting point.
"It is the first step in our saying to the wider world, 'This is what we would like you to do in the way of investing in our kids' future and in the state's future in the 09-11 biennium,' " said UW System President Kevin Reilly, whose budget continues to be funded less and less, percentage-wise, by state revenue sources.
With all the talk about budgets and funding, Reilly noted he hopes to keep tuition increases in the 5- to 6-percent range over the next two years. Tuition, however, is not officially part of the discussion at this week's meeting.
What is the sales pitch educational leaders will be delivering to the taxpayers of Wisconsin?
"Quality education, from pre-kindergarten through higher education, is really the foundation for all of our workforce development needs in the state of Wisconsin -- so we can fill the jobs we have now and attract the kind of jobs we're going to want for a vital economy," said Burmaster. "We are in a difficult situation as a state. Where do you find new revenue for investment into the kinds of things we really need to enhance and expand? So that's the debate: where do we find new revenue in order to invest in education."
Chazen
design OK'd
The Regents' Capital Planning and Budget Committee unanimously approved the Design Report for UW-Madison's Chazen Museum of Art project and gave the authority to increase the project's scope and budget by $15.6 million, of which $15.4 million will be paid for with gift funds. Overall, the project -- which will almost certainly be approved by the full Board on Friday, will cost $47.1 million -- virtually all of which is being paid for by gift money.
The 81,000-square foot project consists of a new four-story museum building linked to the existing Chazen via an enclosed bridge. The third-floor bridge will serve as an art gallery and span Murray Street, which is being converted into the East Campus pedestrian mall.
"As you can imagine, this has been the culmination of, oh, I don't know how many years of work," said Chazen Museum of Art director Russell Panczenko. "I think we identified the need for a building in 1997 or 1998, and we've been working away at it and identifying what we're going to be and how to do it. To come this far and have approval, I think is dramatic.
"This is great for the whole East Campus."
The new building is to be located at 750 University Ave. and will not only provide space for the display and storage of works of art, but will house conservation and exhibition preparation rooms, object and print study classrooms, an auditorium and a museum shop.
Work should begin in 2009, with an opening in February 2011. The site is the former A.W. Peterson office building that is now demolished.
UW-Madison's East Campus Gateway remains a
work in progress, but the plan is it will someday revitalize the
eastern edge of campus by becoming a vibrant center for performing,
creating, learning and living.
A pedestrian mall will link Regent Street at the south to the Memorial Union and Lake Mendota on the north. The mall is to unify new buildings and features of the planned arts and humanities district with existing spaces such as Library Mall.
Ready the
troops
UW System leaders are hoping that the new federal GI Bill which was passed this summer will help boost enrollment -- and even help diversify -- campuses across the state.
"We won't have the numbers coming out of the service that we did after World War II, but we will have many more veterans coming out now than we would have had without the ramp-up in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Reilly. "These veterans are, by and large, mature people who've had responsibilities in the service. Many of them come back really willing and wanting to learn, and we need to find ways to make it relatively simple for them to get into our campuses, to get the services they need when they're there.
"We also recognize that there is a lot of diversity among the veterans. They are a more diverse group than our current students are now, and if we are successful in attracting them, we will provide the kind of diversity we seek on many of our campuses.
"And we know if we don't get more veterans in we won't reach the number of baccalaureate degree holders we need in Wisconsin for a prosperous economy."
The Wisconsin Legislature took the unusual step of enacting its own version of the GI Bill, which was signed by Gov. Jim Doyle in 2005. For the first time last year, the Wisconsin GI Bill waived 100 percent of tuition and fees for state veterans who attended a UW System or Wisconsin Technical College System school. However, the state didn't provide nearly enough money to fund the bill, which was a hardship on state institutions of higher education.
For the 2008-09 school year, for instance, the UW System increased tuition for most students to raise the estimated $18 million it will need to cover the program this coming school year.
Veterans' pleas for more support nationally were finally answered on June 30 when President Bush signed a supplemental war spending package that includes nearly $162 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus a dramatic expansion of GI Bill benefits for veterans who have served on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001. However, the new federal GI Bill won't take effect until the summer of 2009.
Nonetheless, most see the new GI Bill, officially known as the Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act of 2008, as a major victory for vets across the nation. But it remains to be seen exactly how it will impact veterans and institutions of higher education, especially in Wisconsin.
In Wisconsin, with its own version of the GI Bill, nearly 4,000 veterans attended one of the UW System schools in 2007-08, and system officials say they expect that number to grow by at least 10 percent each year for the next several years.
