State Senate Democrats sent letters to UW System President Katharine Lyall and the UW System Board of Regents Wednesday stating their intention to estore significant funding for the university system"" in the state budget.
Budget cuts to the UW System, passed by Gov. Scott McCallum, the Joint Finance Committee and the State Assembly, total over a million dollars.
In reaction to the cuts, UW System officials implemented system-wide enrollment and hiring freezes, saying they would be able to lift these freezes once the budget situation was more clear.
Currently, the Budget Reform Act, legislation aiming to remedy Wisconsin's $1.1 billion deficit, is in the Senate.
""We ... pledge to work towards ensuring that we maintain the UW-System as a world-class institution while preserving access to higher education for Wisconsin families,"" Senate members said in the letter, signed by 18 Senate Democrats, to the Board of Regents.
In the letter to Lyall, signers said they hoped ""these assurances will allow the UW System to, at least on a limited basis, begin to restart the enrollment process."" The letter was signed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala and Chair of the Senate Universities, Housing and Government Operations Committee Mark Meyer.
Jessica Miller, a UW-Madison senior and chair of the Associated Students of Madison, said this was a ""phenomenal start"" for the Senate.
""I'll be interested to see how that plays out over the next few weeks and what they actually do,"" Miller said.
The Senate has planned statewide budget hearings, one of which is scheduled to take place at UW-Madison next week.
Miller said she thought it was ""ridiculous"" the session was during spring break.
""When we called and told them it was during spring break, they were like 'Well ... yeah. We know, and there's nothing we can do about it,'"" Miller said. ""I just think that that says a lot for how much value they put on actually hearing from students.""
Jason Stephany, a UW-Madison sophomore and state chair of the College Democrats of Wisconsin, said he thought the letters from the Democrats showed ""commitment to students and student issues.""
""I think the Senate's version [of the budget] is going to be a lot more responsible,"" Stephany said.
Neither Lyall nor Board of Regents President Jay Smith was available for comment.
