STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) — The Governor may be talking about the White House, but many state-funded entities are still talking about Scott Walker’s budget and the vetoes. The University of Wisconsin Stevens Point was impacted by the veto pen.
SPECIALTY PROGRAM STAFF CUT:
Chancellor Bernie Patterson says veto cuts to both the Paper Science position and the planned Aquaculture Specialist are both disappointing, and very different in their affect. “The Paper Science funding was existing funding that will now go away, so that’s particularly problematic. The additional $100,000 dollars for the NADF (Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility) in Bayfield, Wisconsin was new funding that was going to add an extension position, UW Extension position, at that facility, which would have been quite helpful and a great thing to do, but that’s different than having existing funding of a position that’s currently filled go away.”
Patterson says the Stevens Point campus can still seek funding for the Paper Sciences position through the Board of Regents. “We’re going to do just what the Governor recommended, and we’re going to make a request to the UW System for them to pick up that funding as he suggested in his veto.”
The Chancellor says asking the UW System for the addition funding right now after a 250-million dollar cut is a tall order. “Well, I think the reserves at the System level now are quite low, so it’s clearly a longshot.”
One other longshot Patterson is exploring is funding from the industry to help support the Paper Sciences position. “We would welcome funding from the business community in the form of a group effort from across several entities. That’s not unheard of, in fact, it’s actually quite common in higher education. An endowed chair in Paper Science would be outstanding.”
It’s too soon to know if either of the UWSP positions can be saved.
One good thing came from the Governor’s actions Sunday. He allowed the proposal for Stevens Point to have differential tuition to help pay for staffing and supplying hard-to-get mandatory classes was approved. That plan still has to pass the regents and a student referendum.
DIFFERENTIAL TUITION:
One of the items that escaped the Governor’s veto pen was the proposal to add differential tuition at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point campus. Chancellor Bernie Patterson says a large number of students went to Madison to talk to lawmakers, explaining why it is necessary. Patterson says Governor Walker considered stopping the proposed funding mechanism for bottleneck courses that are hard to get. “The Governor did not veto it. He certainly considered it, and it was talked about in his office, I’m told, and they decided to leave it in as the Joint Finance Committee wrote it, which authorizes us to move forward. Of course, it will require a student referendum in the fall.”
Patterson believes the provision requiring a referendum of UWSP students to approve the extra tuition along with another provision allowing them to stop differential tuition if it no longer fulfills their needs convinced Scott Walker to approve the move and not veto the language in the budget. “Financially, this makes perfect sense to our students to hopefully graduate in a more timely fashion, get jobs, go to work, start paying taxes, start paying back their student loans, it works. It’s a winner for everybody.”
Patterson says they will now move forward with presenting the differential tuition plan formally to the Board of Regents, and then conducting a referendum through the Student Government Association. He says it will be a challenge to put it in place by next January, but it’s not impossible.
(Listen to our interview with Chancellor Bernie Patterson on our website, here.)