Chancellor Ward outlines budget plan
 State taxpayer support for UW education has increased only 7 percent since 1994, much less than in all neighboring states. |
Chancellor David Ward briefed the Faculty Senate Monday on his biennial budget initiative and told members that their support of the plan is critical for its success.
“We’re trying to simply spread the word so that most all of us can become, in a sense, advocates of this budget,” Ward said at the first meeting of the Faculty Senate this academic year.
The chancellor’s plan is designed to attract $57 million in state support and tuition over four years and match it with income raised from a $200 million endowment supported by donors, alumni and others.
The added revenue will be used to increase financial aid; improve instructional and research initiatives; pay for needed building maintenance; and hire new faculty.
The plan would make possible the appointment of at least 100 new professors in the next two years and provide competitive raises to faculty and staff. The chancellor said the proposal’s faculty element was “front-loaded” to make an immediate effect on UW–Madison.
“Your departments, preferably in collaboration with other departments, will have the opportunity to make proposals along the lines of the strategic cluster appointments that were introduced last year,” Ward said.
Ward made his case for the partnership of state and private funding at the beginning of his presentation. Using charts, he outlined the decline in state support for UW–Madison in the last quarter-century, from 44 percent in 1973-74 to 26.9 percent in 1997-98. He also discussed the need to establish a critical threshold level of state support to leverage increased federal and private revenues.
The chancellor likened his plan to how the university has funded construction in recent years. To attract more state support for new buildings, UW–Madison has matched state funding with gifts from donors, alumni and friends of the university.
This strategy has provided $100 million in taxpayer support, matched by more than $225 million in private support, for the university’s capital budget in the last four years. The same arrangement is now needed for the university’s operating budget, Ward said.