UW Board of Regents forwards budget proposal to increase graduates, create jobs
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents Aug. 19 approved a two-year budget intended to boost Wisconsin’s economy by increasing the number of UW graduates and creating new jobs.
The budget includes a request for $83.6 million increase in general purpose funds from the state, including $22.6 million to add 5,900 students across the UW System.
The Board of Regents’ approval of its budget request is an opening step in the 2011-13 budget process. The next governor will use the proposal in crafting a two-year state budget that will be presented to the Legislature early next year.
The state is already looking at a $2.5 billion shortfall in the next two-year state budget, and most agencies were asked not to request any additional state funds. An exception was made for UW System instruction and research activities that are focused on economic growth.
“We’re cognizant of the state’s fragile fiscal condition and scarcity of state resources, but on the other hand we can’t sit on the sidelines,” UW System President Kevin Reilly told the board. “This is an investment, not an expenditure.”
Under the budget proposal, UW–Madison would receive $5.4 million to hire 225 graduate assistants for work on externally funded research projects with new faculty members. The funds would generate $35 million in external funding because of the research done by those new faculty members.
“This budget initiative provides much-needed support for our graduate program that will help stimulate Wisconsin’s economy and create hundreds of jobs,” says Darrell Bazzell, UW–Madison vice chancellor for administration.
The budget includes proposed changes to state law that would give UW institutions authority to raise tuition to fund educational initiatives, address compensation needs and use more efficient purchasing processes.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin has called for similar administrative flexibilities. She told the board that the new initiatives depended on the outcome of other pieces of the overall budget request, including the requests for necessary base budget increases and additional flexibility.
“We want to be able to do what’s right for the state, but if it’s not conditional, we’ll be making promises we won’t be able to keep,” Martin told the board.
Reilly said system officials are making it clear those provisions are necessary to achieve the budget’s goals.
The Board of Regents will consider pay plan decisions at its November meeting. However, the operating budget passed Thursday includes a request for $20.9 million to restore the rescinded 2 percent pay plan salary increase for nonrepresented staff.
Represented staff received the 2 percent increase starting in June 2009, and the Board of Regents said it was calling on the state to restore the increase for nonrepresented staff, including faculty, staff and nonrepresented classified employees.
The capital planning area of the budget includes $76.8 million of private dollars to fund an Athletic Performance Center. The facility would house programs for the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics, the College of Engineering and a sports medicine clinic operated by the UW Hospital and Clinics.
The building would include computer labs and study spaces that will be available at all times to engineering students, in addition to such new athletic facilities as locker rooms, strength and conditioning center, and sports medicine therapy areas. The budget also covers some renovation work in the existing McClain Center.
Other UW–Madison facilities that would be funded in the capital budget include:
— School of Human Ecology, $53 million.
— Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research, $134.8 million.
— School of Nursing, $52.2 million.
In other business, the Board of Regents:
— Honored outgoing Gov. Jim Doyle for his commitment to the UW System and higher education during his eight years as governor.
Doyle thanked the Board of Regents for supporting what he saw as two important legacies for higher education in Wisconsin: dramatically increasing financial aid and building new facilities at campuses across the state.
“We live in a political climate in which cynicism is very much on the ascendency,” Doyle told the board. “In the long run, over the whole course of those decisions and the direction you take, the real focus has to be on how you continue to move this great system forward.”
– Was expected today (Aug. 20) to give final approval of a new, five-year sponsorship agreement with adidas to receive footwear, equipment and apparel for UW–Madison sports teams in exchange for exclusive licensing opportunities. The agreement is worth $2.3 million a year by the end of the contract.
Under the agreement, advanced Thursday by the Regents’ business, finance and audit committee, UW–Madison would receive $1.3 million in apparel and equipment for its sports teams in 2011-12, the first year of the agreement, an increase from $950,000 in the final year of the current contract. That would increase to almost $1.38 million by 2015-16, the final year of the contract.
UW-Madison’s cash payment would jump from $450,000 a year to $850,000 in the first and second years of the contract, then $900,000 in the third through fifth years.
In exchange, adidas would be the exclusive provider of apparel, equipment and footwear for UW–Madison teams, and would receive an exclusive license to produce and sell UW–Madison gear.
The agreement also includes a provision subjecting adidas to inspection and monitoring for human rights issues.