STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) — The Wisconsin state budget is far from completed, but UW campuses all over the state are talking about how to live with a lot less funding next year. UW Stevens Point is no exception.
Greg Summers is the Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at UW Stevens Point. He says one of the tools they and other campuses are using is to offer a voluntary separation incentive to university staff that might want to retire early. “It’s a voluntary separation incentive, which means that if folks are eligible to retire and they meet certain standards that are outlined in the program, they can make the voluntary decision to retire with some incentive, with some financial incentive from the institution, and that’s another tool that our universities are trying to use to avoid what we think may be the need for involuntary layoffs, so it’s a little bit different.”
Summers says not all UW Stevens Point’s 11-hundred plus staff would be eligible for the separation incentives. “There are about 281 people who are technically eligible for this incentive program at Stevens Point. They were all mailed packets with information for them to consider. We don’t know yet, and we won’t know until another week or so how many people will actually step forward and say that they’re interested in the program.”
Just over 25% of UW Stevens Point’s staff is eligible for the incentives.
With campuses making big changes now before the state biennial budget is even done, is it possible they are jumping the gun and cutting too much too soon? Summers doesn’t think so. He says they have to be prepared for what might happen. “We’re certainly hoping that the budget reduction gets reduced, and that our cut is smaller than what is currently being proposed by the Governor, and being discussed by the Legislature, but we have to plan for the Governor’s proposal because the cuts are so significant, and the timeline will be so short for us to figure out how to implement those cuts, how to live with that smaller budget, that we really have no choice but to make plans and to try and get the institution ready to live within whatever budget we’re given by the state.”
Summers says many UW campuses were in financial stress before the Governor proposed his next budget. “Many of the UW institutions already were experiencing a budget deficit because of the tuition freeze that we’ve been in during the current biennium. Many of the UW’s have seen an enrollment decline, because the population of 18-to-21 year old students has declined, so our pipeline of students in that traditional age group has been reduced, and so a lot of us are still dealing with some structural deficits, even before the proposal.”
Many legislators, including Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos say 150 million is a more reasonable cut than what Governor Walker asked for. Summers says that doesn’t solve the financial problems. “The notion of a continued tuition freeze and further reduction is significant, even if it is half of what the Governor is proposing.”
Summers says they will continue to look for ways to save money, save programs and business partnerships, and meet the workforce needs in several key business sectors. Right now, it’s too soon to know exactly what is ahead.
He says it’s still a moving target, and everything is changing. What he knows is they have to continue having the conversation about how to drastically cut costs. “I’ve likened it to purgatory. To folks on campus, it feels a little bit like purgatory. Yes, we’re trying to plan as concretely as we can, but knowing that most everything will change in one way, shape, or form, or another, and so that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re really waiting but trying to think of enough ideas to manage the budget when and if it comes.”
Whatever happens to the budget, Summers says there will still be a university and they will still be educating. He just doesn’t know yet what programs or how many students they will be able to sustain. “Our job is to teach students and help them earn degrees, and to open up their futures and give them the kind of transformational opportunities that we’ve been doing for more than a century. We’re still going to be doing that. My priority as Provost is really to protect our ability to enroll students, to teach them, to graduate them.”
The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee has begun voting on the aspects of the state budget. Most in Madison predict the big items like the UW cuts will happen closer to June, after new revenue figures are released and they know just what the state can afford to fund.
The University of Wisconsin Stevens Point is optimistic they can proceed with a couple of building projects, even though they might lose over 25% of their funding if the Governor’s proposed budget passes. When asked if the planned 75 million dollar science building is at risk of not being built, the Provost says “no.” Summers says, “Everything that we’ve been told so far is that the answer to that is ‘no.’ The building is still moving forward. It’s in a little bit separate budget structure, a separate funding stream than our usual traditional state budget, so it’s funded very differently.”
The other building project UW Stevens Point is working on involves a structure that’s already built and empty. Summers says they still wish to acquire the former Mid-State Technical College building on Michigan Avenue from the city to expand their nursing and health sciences programs. “We’re still in negotiations with the city. The City of Stevens Point has had some leadership change of its own, and I think that’s kind of slowed down our conversations, but as a university, we’re still very excited by that project. It would give us some badly needed space for our programs to expand, and in some key areas that are really important to the region and the community. Health is one of the biggest regional needs that we’ve identified as a university that we want to help to serve.”
Several city officials toured the former Mid-State building Monday. Summers is hoping the university and the city can get back to the bargaining table soon.
Local university officials are concerned about the future of certain public-private partnerships if the proposed state budget passes as-is. Summers says their campus has several areas where research and instruction are taking place in partnership with private businesses, including the Aquaponics Innovation Center in Montello. “A big part of our effort as a university is outreach to the community and partnerships with local businesses, and aquaponics is one of those major areas, sustainable technology, our engineering program is another area where we know there are regional needs. We know there are businesses in the region that are anxious to partner with us. We hope we have the wherewithal to continue those partnerships.”
Other off campus projects like the Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility could see deep funding cuts as well.
(Listen to our interview with Greg Summers on our website, here.)
