With a deeper projected budget deficit for the 2009-11 biennium, the Department of Administration has called for even further spending cuts from state agencies, including the University of Wisconsin System.
Gov. Jim Doyle announced last Tuesday Wisconsin is facing a $5 billion budget deficit through June 30, 2011, a $2 billion increase from his earlier projection of $3 billion.
The DOA sent a memo to state agencies asking them to make cuts beyond the 10 percent reductions they were initially asked to make after Doyle's first budget deficit projection.
Several state agencies, including the Railroad Commission and the Board on Aging and Long Term Care, have stated they are unable to make these further cuts.
According to Mike Mikalsen, spokesperson for state Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, the DOA is now looking for a 15-20 percent spending cut from state agencies. He said the UW System will have to resort to serious tuition increases.
[The University] will have to turn to significant and potentially double digit tuition increases the next several years,"" Mikalsen said.
State Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, said the university will try to make cuts that will cause the least damage, but any sort of budget cut will hurt the UW System.
UW System Spokesperson David Giroux said Wisconsin is facing a paradox in regard to budget reductions for UW System schools because UW schools are an ""economic engine"" for the state.
""The state has never needed the public university more, and it has probably never been more of a challenge to maintain it at the level of which it is needed,"" Giroux said. ""We need to preserve the core of this university now, and arguably we need to invest in it.""
A federal stimulus plan to address the nation's economic ills is expected to be announced in the coming months. A federal plan could alleviate some of the deficit in Wisconsin but not solve it, according to Black.
""Whatever stimulus package Congress adopts will be of some help to closing the deficit, but it will only close it to a modest extent,"" Black said.
Mikalsen said increases in efficiency within UW schools will be the ""silver lining"" to the situation.
""We are hopeful the UW system will make the changes and reforms, the cost savings, that long-term will make them a much better organization,"" Mikalsen said.
