Keeping with last semester's trend of dismal forecasts concerning the UW System's financial situation, university officials are once again stressing the negative effects that decreasing state financial support will have.
At the August UW System Board of Regents meeting, UW System President Katharine Lyall spoke of the critical point to which state and university relations had come.
She said that there was no doubt in her mind that the next few years will determine the future of the UW System.
\We have now 'hit the wall,'"" Lyall said. ""Any future base budget reductions must either be offset by tuition increases or by enrollment reductions.""
Shrinking the UW System is inevitable if base reductions continue in the future, Lyall said.
Among legislatures there has been a casual discussion of whether this shrinkage would be a completely negative action, according to Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater.
""There's been some talk of whether we need as many campuses out there, do we need as many two years out there,"" Nass said. ""The thought process is out there because of the budget crunch and deficit.""
Tensions between the university and the state reached a peak last spring as House Republicans threatened cuts to the UW System of more than $100 million. As passed this summer, the finalized budget repair bill left the university with $44 million in cuts.
Nass called claiming enrollment will have to be cut a red herring.
""They throw that out because it's a hot button issue,"" Nass said. ""I think legislators are getting really tired of it.""
State statutes require that the Board of Regents submit a budget for 2003-'05 to the Department of Administration and the Legislative Fiscal Bureau by Sept. 15.
According to the budget proposal, adopted by the Board of Regents Aug. 22, the state would fund the university at the ""cost to continue,"" without funding any new programs.
The ""cost to continue"" includes fully financing expenditures such as pay plan increases and other costs incurred this academic year.
Tuition levels and resources per student for the next academic year are set at this point, according to John Torphy, UW-Madison vice chancellor of administration.
""The real question is what's going to happen in the future,"" Torphy said.
Members of the Board of Regents also asked for a series of flexibilities including those related to tuition and interest earnings on gift money.
Currently, the state has certain controls over setting undergraduate tuition levels. Members of the board are now seeking to secure that authority.
Torphy said he thought it was a ""good possibility"" that the Board of Regents would get more flexibility related to tuition but to the extent that legislatures ""give flexibility, they'll probably put limits to some degree ... because that's a political issue.""
An increase in control over setting tuition does not necessarily mean huge tuition jumps in the future, Torphy added.
""Will it go up any more than it would have without the legislature? I think the answer is 'No',"" he said.
A more likely result, he said, would be more discussion of differential equations at the graduate school level linked to the cost of each specific program.
""The real problem the state faces is how it's going to ultimately settle this permanent, ongoing deficit in some way,"" Torphy said.
