June 1, 2007
JOINT COMMITTEE ON FINANCE SET TO ACT ON UW SYSTEM BUDGET
The Legislature's budget writing Joint Committee on Finance is scheduled to take up the UW System budget Tuesday, June 5th. The committee will begin voting at 10 a.m. and will act on various other state agency issues before getting to the UW System budget. The committee is hoping to wrap up its budget deliberations by the end of next week before sending the spending plan to the Senate.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has prepared issue papers in several provisions of the UW System budget, including some items that are important to UW-Madison. The papers the legislators will be working off of contain options that legislators can choose from when they take action. The legislators can choose an option or create one of their own. The papers that have been prepared for Tuesday's action are as follows:
University of Wisconsin System
820 Initiatives
821 UW-La Crosse
822 Retention of High Demand Faculty
823 Biomedical Technology Alliance
824 Islet Transplantation
825 Lawton and Advanced Opportunity Program
826 Application Fee Increase
827 UW-Madison Intercollegiate Athletics
828 Nonresident Tuition Remission for Certain Undocumented Persons
Higher Educational Aids Board
460 Wisconsin Higher Education Grants and Tuition Grants
461 WHEG Sum Sufficient and Maximum Grant Links
462 Veterans Tuition Remission Reimbursement
463 Wisconsin Covenant Program
464 Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant
The papers can be found at: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lfb/2007-09budget/Budget%20Papers/June%205.htm.
Position papers for each paper prepared by UW System can be found at: http://www.uwsa.edu/govrel/lupdate/2007/LFB-IssuePapersCumulative.pdf. These papers lay out what the UW System position is on each item of the budget and have been distributed to the members of the Finance Committee in preparation for the vote on Tuesday.
UW-Madison has also prepared a position paper on LFB paper #822, retention of high demand faculty. The UW-Madison position paper can be found at: http://staterelations.wisc.edu/images/recruitment_retention_paper.pdf.
DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS PROVISION TO GET VOTE TUESDAY
The Joint Committee on Finance is scheduled to act on a budget amendment that would authorize the offering of domestic partner benefits to all state employees on Tuesday, June 5th at 10 a.m. The provision was not included by the committee as part of the Governor's budget and must be added back in. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has prepared a paper on the provision that the committee will vote on. It will take nine votes to include the provision in the budget. A copy of LFB #285 paper is available at: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lfb/2007-09budget/Budget%20Papers/285.pdf
A position paper urging the committee to vote in favor of the provision has been prepared and provided to each member of the committee. The UW-Madison position paper on LFB #285 is available at: http://www.news.wisc.edu/domesticPartnerBenefits
.For the complete text of all bills and their current status, please visit http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2005/data/ab_list.html (Assembly bills) or http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2005/data/sb_list.html (Senate bills).
For more information on state related issues contact,
Don Nelson or Kristi Thorson
Assistant Director, State Relations
608/262-8967