Someone passed me a specific list of IT cuts:
3 full time positions lost
2 student interns cut
wage freeze for student workers
No replacement for aging servers
No support for professional training and travel
25% reduction in student assistant funds
a 4% overall reduction.
This will surely reduce the effectiveness of IT services for faculty and students!
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2 comments:
I understand your focus is the University, but if the state budget is not cut in the University system, it needs to be cut somewhere else. Corrections is an obvious target (although it cannot be cut immediately) and health care savings would help lower labor costs for the university system. My point is, highlighting cuts in your blog isn't enough. It is not about the piece, but rather the whole pie.
Jim Doyle balanced the budget on the backs of students and the university so he could fully fund Medicaid for low income seniors and individuals. He was one of four governors in the U.S.to preserve this funding. Here are the big five that make up 85% of the state budget:
-K-12 Education
-Corrections
-Shared Revenue for cities
-Medical Assistance (senior care, medicaid)
-university system
Take out $1.5 billion (or add tax money) from somewhere. These are tough choices that should be viewed in the equation of the entire state budget. If you add money to the university, you must take it out of the budget for one of the other areas.
No one is cutting the university because they don't care. They just feel that low income seniors are a bigger priority than IT staff at this time.
Good luck.
Thanks for your very interesting and insightful comments.
I would make two points:
The first is that the IT cuts are only one part of the cuts that are affecting every unit of the university and hurting our educational mission. I posted the IT department cuts (which are in addition to cuts the department and the university already took in the last biennium). My own department has lost courses and financial resources too. In the budgeting process, we really have no idea how cuts are being distributed and I would like to have a better picture of what is happening here in Oshkosh.
Secondly, I am not sure that mortgaging the State's future is the right way to assure the preservation of services in the present. Studies show quite clearly that having more college graduates means that a state attracts higher paying jobs and thus, will have more revenue in the future. Making it more difficult and more expensive to get a college degree is shooting yourself in the foot in the longer term, even if short term fundiing is held constant.
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