UW System President Katharine Lyall announced a system-wide hiring freeze late Tuesday due to the current state budget situation and the uncertain level at which the UW System will be state-funded.
UW-Madison has actually been adhering to such a hiring freeze for the past two or three weeks, according to UW-Madison Provost Peter Spear.
Spear said deans, directors and other administrative unit heads had been asked to fill currently vacant positions only if they were \essential for undergraduate education and student services.""
The freeze applies to all university jobs, including faculty. Officials will still be conducting searches for faculty vacancies though, Spear added, ""because faculty obviously are central to our instructional mission.""
""We've attempted to make this as transparent as possible to the students,"" Spear said.
Tuesday's action follows a system-wide enrollment freeze, announced March 8 by the UW System Board of Regents. The freeze, which would affect certain campuses more than others, would result in approximately 8,000 fewer UW System students if it were to stay in effect, according to UW System Spokesperson Erik Christianson.
University officials have said the two freezes were made due to an uncertainty of the university's fiscal situation in terms of state funding.
""When the state cut the university by $33 million in 1995-'96, we had more than a year to plan for those cuts,"" Lyall said in a statement. ""Right now, more than $100 million in cuts on the table would go into effect in four months.""
Originally, the UW System was told to cut $50.5 million under Gov. Scott McCallum's budget proposal. That number was increased by approximately $22 million when the Joint Finance Committee reviewed McCallum's proposal and was further raised to over $100 million under amendments made during an Assembly Republican caucus.
The entire Assembly will begin its review of the budget proposal today.
Christianson said university officials approximated the cuts to the system, if the budget were to pass with all aforementioned changes, to be $108 million. Christianson added that other potential revenue shortfalls, such as health insurance costs and union employee saleries, could also add to that amount. Approximations were made after considering the specifics of each different budget proposal.
For example, McCallum originally set the amount at which the university could raise resident undergraduate tuition without going through a special legislative hearing at 10 percent. The Joint Finance Committee lowered that number to 8 percent. This action would cost the university $10 million, according to a UW System analysis.
According to the same analysis, cuts proposed by the Republican caucus, such as those to the travel and advertising budgets, would cost the university an additional $28.5 million.
""All of this activity's been happening very fast,"" Christianson said. ""We're making decisions based on the numbers we have right now.\
