What: Budget forum with UW-Whitewater Chancellor Richard Telfer
When: 1-2 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Summers Auditorium in the James R. Connor University Center at UW-Whitewater
UW-Whitewater must cut $7.5 million from its budget over the next two years. Of the $5 million in cuts planned for the next fiscal year, $3.1 million will come from general purpose revenue.
Reductions are planned in the following departments:
$1.05 million—Academic affairs, which includes admissions, academic programs and the library.
$1.02 million—Campus wide
$320,035—Student affairs, which includes financial aid, the university center and the health center.
$292,000—Professional development
$236,437—Administrative affairs, which includes human resources, facilities planning and management and police services.
$124,839—University advancement, which is the fundraising arm of the university.
$49,559—Chancellor's office
$30,296—Athletics
WHITEWATER — Three people will lose their jobs at UW-Whitewater and three positions won't be filled as the school makes cuts to reduce its budget by $7.5 million over the next two years.
"We've had to change the paradigm to try to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible with the resources we've got," said Randy Marnocha, vice chancellor for academic affairs. "And this comes at a time when you start to run out of ideas on how to do that.
"A $7.5 million cut over a biennium is a very significant cut."
Although the school's budget for the upcoming biennium is not set, UW-Whitewater received $85.6 million in general purpose revenue from the state and had a total budget of $191.8 million for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which is half a biennium.
With the budget cuts, three people will lose their jobs:
-- Tommie Jones, director of alumni relations.
-- Randall Upton, director of advancement for the College of Education.
-- Megan Matthews, director of advancement for the College of Arts and Communications.
In addition, three new faculty positions will not be filled—one professor each in accounting, English as a second language and physics, said Aimee McCann, budget director. Recruiting to fill the positions had not yet begun, she said.
"With a reduction of this magnitude, it was not possible to address the entire amount without an effect on salaries and staffing," UW-Whitewater Chancellor Richard Telfer wrote in an e-mail to the campus community Tuesday. "However, we are working to keep the number of individuals affected to a minimum."
The cuts are a part of Gov. Jim Doyle's plan to cut the UW System budget by $174 million over the next two years.
Telfer said the university plans to cut $5 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year and the remaining $2.5 million in the 2010-11 fiscal year. Of the $5 million in cuts planned for the next fiscal year, $3.1 million will come from general purpose revenue (state funding and student tuition) and $1.9 million will come from non-general purpose revenue (program revenue, such as residence hall fees).
Marnocha said the cuts to general purpose revenue planned for the next fiscal year will come from the academic affairs, student affairs and administrative affairs departments, among others.
Protecting the number of professors and lecturers was a top priority in making the cuts, McCann said.
"We've really tried to insulate anything that would have any impact on instruction," she said.
The university also plans to evaluate its practice of hiring ad hoc instructional staff—people hired to teach classes on as-needed basis, McCann said.
"The plan is to try to use existing staff as much as possible," she said.
Marnocha said the cuts also include delaying several projects, such as purchasing a hybrid vehicle for the campus police, hiring more custodians to maintain new buildings and constructing at the baseball field a building that includes space for locker rooms, restrooms and concessions.
Telfer wrote in his e-mail that the university is trying to find savings by changing the way it operates.
"Every effort has been made to address the reduction in a programmatic way, determining if we can find the necessary savings by changing our structure or business practices," he wrote.
Telfer is hosting a budget forum Wednesday, when people will be able to ask questions about the proposed cuts.