The state government removed a total of $26.5 million from the UW System's Auxiliary Funds during the 2004-'05 biennium in order to balance the state budget.
According to UW-Madison Assistant Vice Chancellor Bill Richner, because the state faced a deficit budget of three billion dollars at the time, they took money from several funds, including the UW System's auxiliary funds.
Though the burden was fairly distributed among UW schools, UW-Madison had to come up with $8.6 million on its own.
\They put that money toward financial aid, so they did keep it within the university's budget and moved it into supporting students who needed it,"" he said.
These funds included self-supported programs that do not depend on tuition or tax dollars, but rather, on fees for their services. However, the budget exempted segregated fee-supported operations. Because of this stipulation, accounts administrated by the Dean of Students, University Health Services and the Wisconsin Union. Also, the Recreational Sports general programs were not touched.
Richner said though these accounts were labeled reserves, they were necessary and many already had been assigned a purpose on campus.
""We don't have unneeded money sitting around. The money that was lost here was obligated for other things,"" Richner said.
The Nielsen Tennis Stadium, not supported by segregated fees, had $132,000 taken from its reserve fund set aside to build a new roof.
""It'd take us about 5 years to generate that kind of money,"" said Nielsen Director Jeff DeVorak.
The biggest hits were the divisions of University Housing and Facilities Planning, said Richner. Housing alone lost $889,000 and caused residence halls to cut their budgets from last year to avoid increasing rates.
According to UW-Madison Director of Facilities Planning and Management Alan Fish, the transportation fund reserve lost over four million dollars over the last two years from the money accumulated for additional parking facilities.
""The effect would be to not delay [parking structures] but they are going to be more expensive because we have to borrow money instead of pay cash,"" he said.
Richner noted any further transfers could have an even worse effect on the UW Master Plan and other auxiliary projects, but does not predict any further cuts.
""The governor has proposed new money to fund financial aid and has not proposed to go back to auxiliary funds this time,"" he said. ""We are hopeful the legislature will agree with that.""
Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, said, ""While I am very supportive of student financial aid, I thought it was wrong ... it would really only cause students to pay more in the future.""
According to Black, there is a law requiring financial aid to increase with a tuition increase that was suspended for the last budget.
""If the governor and the Republican legislature had not suspended it, that money would have come from the general purpose revenue instead,"" Black said.
