WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — Marathon County board members are calling on the state to limit budget cuts to UW-Marathon County.
The board voted on Tuesday to send a letter to the state legislature to ensure that UWMC and Marathon County Cooperative Extension maintain their current level of funding. Administrator Brad Karger says that the County owns the buildings that UWMC uses for educational purposes and has spent $80 million building and maintaining them. “We’ve done a good job maintaining our buildings and upgrading our materials, and we expect that the programming that goes on in the inside will be of the same quality.”
Karger says the County has a vested interest in keeping the funding in place at UW-Marathon County. “If those cuts were fully in place, which we anticipate to be $450,000, the quality of our educational experience here in Marathon County would be diminished.” He also says that the college will have a hard time withstanding the cuts. “We know that operation cannot absorb a hit of that magnitude and still provide the same educational quality that it has in the past.”
Governor Walker has proposed $300 million in overall cuts to the UW in the upcoming budget.
