The Wisconsin Department of Administration issued an additional $65.7 million budget cut to the UW System over the next two years.
UW-Whitewater will see $1,985,927 in cuts from the lapse this school year. An additional $845,587 will be cut from funds for the 2012-2013 school year.
These cuts are a one-time reduction, but are in addition to the $10.7 million cuts already being made to UW-W over the next two years.
Chancellor Richard Telfer said the university knew there was a lapse of $174 million for state agencies in the state budget, but they were still disappointed to find out that the lapse actually had to happen.
“We were very surprised that the UW System, which represents about seven percent of the state budget, has to pay 38 percent of the lapse,” Telfer said. “We [the UW System] are being made to pay a much, much, much larger portion of the lapse than any of the other state agencies.”
State agencies received a letter last week Friday from the D.O.A. stating the increases in cuts would total approximately $126 million more than what was originally called for in the 2011-2013 state budget.
In June, Gov. Scott Walker passed the budget calling for a $250 million cut to the UW System.
“We won’t be able to increase tuition any more because of the state budget that was already passed put a cap on tuition of 5.5 percent per year,” Telfer said. “You’re already paying 5.5 percent more so we don’t have the possibility in raising tuition to address this budget lapse.”
Telfer said he is going to spend some time determining where the money should come from.
“It’s a really difficult time to have this lapse because we’re in the middle of semesters,” Telfer said. “We have hired the people to teach and we have the students in the classes, so we can’t really do much about the fall semester because we’re already here.”
Telfer also said the university does not have the power to give staff or faculty pay cuts because of the contracts already signed.
“We can’t simply say ‘hey, we don’t have the money so we’re not going to pay you,’” Telfer said. “We don’t have that option.”
UW-Whitewater junior Ellen Derer thinks the additional cuts will be detrimental to the school system.
“I think that cutting the budget by such a large amount is going to hurt students and teachers,” Derer said. “This is going to lead to larger class sizes, which is bad for students. It’s nice that we can have smaller classes here to get to know professors better. It makes for a better learning environment.”
Compared to the other state agencies affected, the UW System will see the majority of the cuts.
Health Services will need to give back $26.6 million and corrections will have to find a way to give back $13.4 million.
From the UW System alone, approximately $46.1 million must be given back to the state this year and $19.6 million next year.
“Education should be first,” junior Becky Knuth said. “Hurting the [UW] System and taking from them to make up for failures in other areas is idiotic in my mind.”
Telfer said the real puzzle is determining where the funds should come from. He said the budget will affect students, he just doesn’t know in which ways yet.
“It may mean that we don’t have some class sections in the spring; that’s a possibility,” Telfer said. “I think we have to look carefully at all of our programs and think if there are some that we aren’t going to be able to continue.”
Telfer said the university is struggling trying to find areas to recover the funds from, but he has a lot of people working on it.
“We’ll find it, but right now I can tell you that we don’t have an answer,” Telfer said.
