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Some are angry. Myself, I’m too busy to stay angry for long. Besides, I do
recognize Gov. Doyle’s great challenge, and limited options, in tackling a fiscal crisis that the public
and people of both parties have watched develop over several years. I also see irony: Being targeted for the deepest cuts can be interpreted as a backhanded compliment. The budget writers recognize that the UW System has a highly marketable product... a product Wisconsin’s finest will continue to value despite price increases. From that narrow view, our revenue potential sets us apart from most state agencies in today’s cash-starved climate. What’s more, we have already demonstrated an ability to be entrepreneurial and increasingly self-supporting. At UW-Green Bay, as we’ve noted many times, only 38 percent of the budget is taxpayer funded. Perhaps, then, we are being rewarded for our success. If so, it is cold consolation, and I am not alone in suspecting such confidence in our resilience is overly optimistic, this time. President Katharine Lyall, Regent President Guy Gottschalk and other knowledgeable observers have expressed serious doubts as to whether, with cuts of this magnitude, the UW System can maintain both its historic reputation for excellence and its openness and accessibility to citizens of this state. Even with back-to-back tuition increases in the neighborhood of 15 percent per year — proposed by Gov. Doyle as an offset to GPR reductions — the bottom line is a $100 million budget reduction. That’s equivalent to eliminating all state support for Green Bay, Platteville, River Falls, and the 13 UW Colleges in year one of the biennium and erasing all state support for Milwaukee in year two. Even if these tuition offsets proposed by Gov. Doyle survive the budget process — and there is no guarantee — the UW System is left with a gaping hole. It comes at precisely the wrong time. I’ll refer here to the words of one of our state’s most articulate and progressive-minded business leaders, John Torinus, the chief executive officer of Serigraph in West Bend. He says flatly that “the state can’t afford to disconnect the university from the economy.” In an op-ed piece, he wrote: If we have learned anything over the last decade... it is that the successful economies revolve around knowledge-based industrial clusters... Brain power is what’s necessary to carry the day in a global economy expanding with huge centrifugal forces... In this day and age, we cannot carry the day in the global economy with a weakened university. Well said. The UW System is an economic engine, for all of us . aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaTOP OF NEXT COLUMN |
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remain hopeful. We look forward to working with members of our region’s legislative
delegation, on both sides of the aisle, as the process moves forward. The Joint
Finance Committee will hold hearings, later this spring, at sites around the state
including one in Northeastern Wisconsin. Tuition will continue to generate headlines. I have shared with our students that I believe the proposed increases are an absolute necessity if we are to keep quality and/or enrollments from eroding. I share the view that tuition is “not a tax” but, rather, an investment that pays dividends many times over. I know that, even with these budget-necessitated increases, UW-Green Bay tuition would remain competitive. At the same time, I continue to be concerned about rising student debt loads. I favor corresponding increases in financial aid and scholarship support. At UW-Green Bay, I believe our challenge is clear. We must hold together through the next tough two years in order to be positioned to become the dynamic regional force that is our clear destiny. We can do so. This means thoughtful reductions to minimize impacts upon the program components most critical to our plans for taking your UWGB to the next level. It also means, contrary to what happened in Madison among state budget categories, that we follow a fairness principle in spreading the pain throughout the UW System: big cuts at all campuses remain even after the tuition offset; tuition increases for students; and little prospect of salary adjustments for our dedicated faculty and staff. For two years. And only if all these pieces are in place. The impacts will be felt by real people. Quoting President Lyall: These cuts are not about some abstraction called the “UW System”; they are about the hopes and dreams of our young people. In their education rests not only the state’s future economic health but also the state’s future supply of teachers, nurses, doctors, business owners, mayors, and legislators. We must meet this budget crisis in ways that preserve the university’s capacity to serve the state’s workforce and its evolving economy. In closing, I want to leave you having measured my words carefully. It is possible that, in the time between my writing this and your reading it, we will have received word of escalating hostilities in Iraq, another local plant closing along the lines of a Mirro or Agrilink, or some new code-red threat to America’s homeland security. Ours is but one on a long list of challenges, and by no means the most immediate or severe. But the University does rank high in terms of what we can offer, in developing the people, the solutions, the hope... to address many of our shared challenges, together. I’ll keep you posted, Bruce  |
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