Gov. Evers Wants Largest Increase in State Support for UW System in Over Two Decades |
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Written by GOV Press Wisconsin |
Friday, 12 April 2024 09:45 |
http://newiprogressive.com/images/stories/S5/uwgb-students-s452.jpg MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers today released the following statement in reaction to the University Financial Assessments released by the University of Wisconsin (UW) System for seven UW campuses: UW-Green Bay, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Parkside, UW-Platteville, UW-River Falls, UW-Superior, and UW-Whitewater. The assessments examine the strained financial circumstances facing UW System campuses—a consequence driven largely by both disinvestment in the UW System over the last decade-plus and inadequate recent state investments approved by the Wisconsin State Legislature to make the UW System whole.
Most recently, during the 2023-25 biennial budget process, Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature rejected Gov. Evers’ proposed investments in the UW System, choosing instead to divert more than $31 million to the Joint Finance Committee supplemental appropriation—a fund controlled by the committee’s Republican majority, which persistently refuses to expeditiously release already-approved investments from the fund—and attempting to cut 188 positions relating to efforts around diversity and equity, the latter of which Gov. Evers was able to ensure UW could retain through his broad, constitutional veto authority. In light of Republican lawmakers’ failure to meaningfully invest in the UW System, Gov. Evers, a month after enacting the biennial budget, called a special session of the Legislature for September 2023 for the Legislature to take up his comprehensive workforce plan, which included an additional more than $100 million investment in the state’s higher education institutions, including an additional $66.4 million for the UW System to help recruit, train, and retain talent in an effort to bolster the state’s workforce. Republicans in the Legislature refused to take up the governor’s comprehensive workforce plan, rejecting investments in Wisconsin’s universities and technical colleges even as several UW campuses have been forced to furlough and lay off employees, shift funding or make cuts, and restructure portions of campus operations. UW-Oshkosh announced last year that approximately 200 employees’ jobs were expected to end. At UW-Platteville, the university announced it would be eliminating 111 positions to help address its deficit. And UW-Green Bay announced that nine staff members would be laid off, affecting library services at their Manitowoc, Marinette, and Sheboygan campuses and a program aimed at helping high schoolers earn college credits. More recently, UW-Green Bay also announced they are considering discontinuing majors in economics, environmental policy and planning, and the arts, as well as minors in international environmental studies, geography, and physics. |
Last Updated on Saturday, 13 April 2024 10:00 |
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