State budget update
The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) of the Wisconsin Legislature is closer to completing their work on the 2015-2017 biennial budget. UW System released a summary of Joint Finance Committee Action on the UW System Biennial Budget following the Committee’s vote on the UW System omnibus budget motion last Friday.
The UW-Madison and the State Budget site continues to post news and information related to the budget, including Chancellor Blank’s statement on the JFC vote.
In addition to significant decisions about funding and governance for all UW System schools, the Joint Finance Committee has taken the following actions related to specific CALS programs:
- Approved the Governor’s recommendation to delete funding for the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative (the state’s match for the federal Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center), the Wisconsin environmental education board, solid waste research funding and funding for Extension recycling education. These are items 9-12 in the Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s “Summary of the Governor’s 2015-2016 Budget Recommendations: University of Wisconsin System” (pg. 461-462).
- Deleted UW System Authority in the Governor’s budget, thereby maintaining current law establishing the UW-Extension Agricultural Safety and Health Center and a provision ensuring proceeds resulting from sales of specific parcels of land used for agricultural research would be re-invested in agricultural research activities. This pertains to items 29 & 30 on pg. 509-510 from the LFB’s Summary of the Governor’s Budget Recommendations.
- Restored funding for the UW-Extension Discovery Farm grant program.
- Redistributed funding for forestry grant programs, reducing the amount that the UW Center for Cooperatives receives to provide grants to forestry cooperatives from $56,500 to $10,000.
- Deleted the Governor’s recommendation to delete the Fertilizer Research Council (this was considered with the DATCP budget earlier in May).