The UW System exceeded its energy budget by $6 million during the last fiscal year, partly due to the fact that state funding in the area has not increased in the last few years. In response, an e-mail sent recently by John Harrod, UW-Madison's physical plant director, requested that campus offices \pay attention to practicing and promoting energy consciousness as a way of life at the university.""
Harrod credits this budget excess to increased campus building space and the cost of energy-saving initiatives that were not taken into account by state legislators in their budget writing deliberations.
""As a part of that project funding, the dollars come from our energy budget,"" Harrod said. ""In turn we realize savings from those projects, but initially we see a larger hit on the budget than we realize in savings immediately.""
Despite being told of these things before the budget was determined last year, the state did not make any increases to its allocation to the UW System, which is then divided among the 26 campuses that comprise the system.
""[The Legislature] hadn't increased our budget for a couple of years and the cost of energy went up [and] it was a cold winter in that period, so we ended up with a total cost exceeding the money that was in the budget,"" said John Torphy, UW-Madison vice chancellor for administration.
Upon recognizing the excess spending, the university requested funding assistance from the Joint Finance Committee.
""They covered part of it and deferred part of it into the next biennium,"" Torphy said. ""I think it was $2.5 million of it [that the committee covered].""
This left the UW System with debt coming into this school year in its energy budget. The need for energy is increasing and the budget problems this year make the campus increasingly strained for funds. However, the light winter likely will alleviate some of the problem for the current year.
""We're still challenged because we're using lots of energy, but it's been a milder winter so that's been good for us,"" Harrod said.
Last year UW System President Katharine Lyall enforced new state standard regarding temperature controls throughout the university system. Harrod said these rules will remain the same. However, he said he hoped university employees will recognize the need to be energy-conscious.
