March 1, 2011
Governor Would Cut U. of Wisconsin’s Flagship Campus Loose
By Jack Stripling
Unveiling his biennial budget on Tuesday, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin formalized his plans to split the University of Wisconsin at Madison from the rest of the system and created a pathway for the Milwaukee campus to gain a similar autonomy “soon.”
The governor’s budget address, and the release of a summary of his proposal, solidified his push to give Madison greater autonomy and its own governing board. The plan has been met with great resistance from officials of the University of Wisconsin system, who say they fear that the remaining regional campuses will lose political muscle and valuable brand association if the flagship is separated.
Mr. Walker’s budget would give the Madison campus the flexibility its leaders have sought for years, while at the same time subjecting the flagship and the system to budget cuts. The proposal would reduce state aid by $250-million over the biennium, placing half of that burden on Madison. The $125-million cut for Madison would equal 13 percent of the campus’s state funds. The other $125-million would be absorbed by the system’s central administration, which would take a 25 percent cut, and the 12 remaining four-year institutions and 13 community colleges, which would lose 11 percent.
Additionally, technical colleges would see a $71.6-million budget cut over the biennium.
Explaining his proposal for the flagship’s separation from the system, Mr. Walker, a Republican elected in November, said he hoped to give Madison the “tools it needs to remain a world leader in research and instruction—while continuing to be a driver of economic development for our state.”
Carolyn A. (Biddy) Martin, Madison’s chancellor, has argued that the campus is hamstrung by red tape in such areas as hiring, procurement, and capital expansion. Mr. Walker’s proposal would make it a “public authority,” rather than a state agency, and, as such, Madison would be exempt from many of the regulations that Ms. Martin describes as problematic, and the university would have the authority to set tuition and use tuition revenue as it chooses.
Ms. Martin could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The flexibility that Madison would gain under Mr. Walker’s proposal is similar to the autonomy the university system’s Board of Regents has sought for all of its campuses. While the governor expressed openness to that eventuality, he singled out only Madison and Milwaukee.
In addition to cutting the system’s budget, Mr. Walker’s proposal would require the system to allocate $250,000 over the biennium to develop a plan to convert Milwaukee into a public authority. It’s unclear from the proposal whether Milwaukee would also split from the system and have its own governing board.
David F. Giroux, executive director of communications and external relations for the system, reiterated on Tuesday the skepticism expressed by system officials about Mr. Walker’s plan.
“It’s fair to say that we are very concerned about duplication of administrative services and intensified competition among UW campuses,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle.
Thomas Luljak, vice chancellor for university relations and communications at the Milwaukee campus, noted that there are still many unknowns surrounding the plan.
“We welcome the governor’s commitment to give us greater flexibility,” he wrote in an e-mail. “However, we don’t know what the impact of moving to a different governance system would be on our campus. UW-Milwaukee is in a different position than the Madison campus, which has many more resources available to it. It is our understanding that the governor’s intention is to begin the process of analyzing our unique circumstances to determine what a separation from the UW System would mean.”