Vice chancellor for administration Darrell Bazzell addresses the campus community at a forum to discuss developments regarding the New Badger Partnership and the state budget process. (Photo: Bryce Richter)
The University of Wisconsin-Madison should be treated differently under a public authority because it is already different and needs new tools to remain competitive nationally and internationally, Chancellor Biddy Martin said at a forum Wednesday.
Martin was speaking the day after Gov. Scott Walker proposed his budget for the next biennium, in which he called for a public authority to govern UW-Madison, as well as a $250 million budget cut for the UW System, half of which would be applied to UW-Madison.
“We are an extraordinary research engine and incredible economic driver for the state,” Martin said. “This requires, in the current world of higher education, the ability to compete at a level that has never been required before.”
Here’s a link to a PowerPoint presentation Martin and Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell gave at the forum.
Speaking to a couple hundred people gathered in Ebling Symposium Center in the Microbial Sciences Building, Martin and Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell fielded a range of questions about the public authority model, its effect on UW-Madison faculty, staff and students, and the projected impact of the cuts proposed by Walker.
The cut to UW-Madison will be 13 percent of total state general tax dollars directed to the campus.
Martin said no decisions have been made yet about how the funding reduction will be applied, but said she expected them to be achieved through a combination of cuts, efficiencies and tuition increases.
“We’ll need to be strategic,” Martin said.
Bazzell noted that the last time the university faced a cut of this size, in Gov. Jim Doyle’s 2003-’05 budget, tuition increased 18 percent the first year and 16 percent the second, which covered nearly 75 percent of the overall budget reduction. Bazzell said in this budget, tuition revenue would be a smaller component than in that two-year cycle.
Martin also addressed questions about the makeup of the proposed 21-member Board of Trustees for UW-Madison. Under Walker’s plan, the governor would appoint 11 members, with the other 10 appointed by the university. One would have to be from the UW System Board of Regents and another would come from the state’s agriculture community to support UW-Madison’s land-grant mission.
The university’s 10 members would include two faculty, one non-faculty staff, one student. The boards of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the Wisconsin Alumni Association and the University of Wisconsin Foundation would also each appoint two members.
Once the members are appointed, they would no longer be representatives of their constituent groups, but part of a board with fiduciary responsibility for the university, Martin said.
“They would not represent those entities, they would be selected by them,” Martin said. “On a board of this sort with fiduciary responsibility for a university, none of the members are considered to be representative of any group.”
Martin said it was necessary for the governor to name a majority of the board for the university to retain sovereign immunity status and to have access to state liability programs.
Those interested in the New Badger Partnership and the state budget will have other opportunities to ask questions about the proposal.
A web chat is scheduled for March 2, at 3 p.m.; others are likely to follow and details will be posted on budget.wisc.edu.
Another forum is scheduled from 1:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8 in the Plenary Room of Grainger Hall.