TO: UW-­‐Stout Students, Faculty and Staff via electronic mail FROM: Bob Meyer, Chancellor DATE: January 27, 2015 RE: Governor’s UW System Budget Announcement Governor Scott Walker this morning announced a series of proposals that will have a major impact on how we operate as a campus. The proposal with the most immediate effect will be a reduction of $150 million a year in state support for the UW System over the 2015-­‐17 biennium, a cut of about 13 percent in state aid over the two years. This follows several other years of reductions, including $250 million the last biennium. Along with the state aid reduction, the governor announced a sweeping set of proposals aimed at withdrawing the UW System from direct legislative oversight by creating a “public authority” under which the Board of Regents would be the main controlling body. Resident undergraduate tuition would be frozen for the next two years under the governor’s proposal, but the Board of Regents would have tuition authority beginning in 2017. Under the authority model, UW System employees no longer would be state employees but would remain covered by the state retirement system and state health plan. The Board of Regents, and not the Legislature, also would have responsibility for tenure and shared governance policies. Most of you are probably asking, “How will this affect UW-­‐Stout and how will this affect my job?” I honestly wish I had those answers. This has been a very fluid and constantly evolving situation, and it wasn’t until last night that I had any inclination that the governor would be making his proposals known this morning. rd
The governor is scheduled to release his 2015-­‐17 state budget on February 3 . We will have to wait for UW System leadership, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau and other agencies to assess the governor’s proposal and lay out the ramifications for individual campuses. However, the immediate impact will be significant for our campus and others around the UW System. We will involve our governance groups, the Strategic Planning Group and the entire campus to come up with ways to make this impending cut as palatable as possible. Hard decisions will have to be made, and we will need everyone’s involvement in this process. We also will share with campus as much information as possible through memos, my blog, UW-­‐Stout Today and the UW-­‐Stout state budget page. We will schedule budget forums to solicit feedback and have established a website you can use to suggest ways to address the budget cut. Through this challenging time, however, we should remember what we have going for us as Wisconsin’s Polytechnic University. Our unique array of programs is in high demand, and we achieved record enrollment this fall. In addition, UW-­‐Stout’s employment rate is extraordinary at 97%. We have much to be proud of and aspire to continue our reputation of excellence. If we work together, we will meet this significant challenge and position the university for the future. The governor’s statement can be read here. Statements from UW System leadership can be read here.