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Director's NoteJohn Roberts |
The New Badger Partnership and Public Authority
In times of uncertainty stress becomes a major force in the workplace and in our personal lives. State employees are facing significant changes, the role of the UW-Madison within the state is undecided, and there are looming Federal Budget issues. When will we have to start paying more of our retirement and health care costs directly? Will collective bargaining go away? Will the UW-Madison split away from the UW System?
At this point no one knows for sure so planning is not easy. We can however keep informed and voice our opinion to our government representatives. Please be aware that the Center Leadership is extremely upset and frustrated by these factors that continue to keep us from rewarding you for the magnificent job you have done to keep our productivity and standards so high that we can compete with any place in the world. We continue to provide feedback to the campus administration and have fully expressed our frustrations. Again, we are aware that this is an extremely stressful time; if you need any help, advice, or a friendly ear to turn to, please be sure to touch base with your supervisor, any of the SSEC Directors, or the UW Employee Assistance Office (263-2987) or visit the Employee Assistance Office.
Today, I will be giving you my opinion on one of these issues: the New Badger Partnership (NBP) and Public Authority (PA). The NBP was initiated by Chancellor Martin about a year ago in response to a myriad of complaints from campus employees about inefficiencies on campus caused by endless red tape, nonsensical rules and obsolete regulations. She received strong support from the campus community for this effort. We later found that she also received strong support from Governor Walker. In fact his staff offered the PA as a way to implement the proposed new freedoms to operate more efficiently, with less interference from the State Department of Administration and the University System Administration.
My reading of the benefits of the deal to the State are that:
1) The UW-Madison agrees to an even larger cut in our State Budget, thereby helping the State balance its budget for the next biennium.
2) The PA allows the State to treat the UW-Madison differently than the other campuses in future budgets.
The UW-Madison campus IS an economic engine and needs to be treated as such. An example of why I believe #2 is important is recent history. The furlough system put into place by Governor Doyle did not make sense for the UW-Madison. We made a strong case to the Governor that it actually costs the State more tax revenue to furlough UW-Madison employees than the amount of state funding it saves. This is due to the multiplier effect on our campus where the State only provides 17 percent of the funding but furloughs also reduce the other 83%.
Our argument failed to stop the furloughs due to politics and the University structure. Politics, in that the System Administration did not support our argument because it did not hold true for all of the other Campuses since they have a much larger percentage of their budgets covered by State funds. Structure, in that the State had no effective way to treats us differently. So the State was forced to furlough Madison Campus employees, even though it made no economic sense.
The POTENTIAL benefits to the University are many, including faster and less expensive building projects, the approval to build a Human Resources System that is flexible enough to actually HELP us accomplish our mission (ie: flexible salary structure and the return of merit increases), increased flexibility in purchasing and other functions, the ability to set tuition rates and the legal authority to make funds obtained by the UW-Madison ours, and not State, funds to be retained by us.
President Riley has countered with his plan that provides greater flexibility to all campuses managed by his group, System Administration. My understanding of his plan is the State gives System Administration much more flexibility and the System folks decide which campus needs what flexibility. A major problem with his plan is that many of the HR and other administrative problems we deal with have not been caused by State rules or regulations, but in fact were caused by the UW System Administration. System Administration has tried to treat all campuses the same, and that only works if the sizes and missions of the campuses are the same, and they are not. Denying available flexibility to the UW-Madison because other campuses do not need it is not acceptable. UW System Administration is NOT part of the solution; they are a very large part of the problem.
The POTENTIAL downside of the PA is also very large. The PA needs to be set up in a way that insulates us from the ebb and flow of politics on the other end of State Street. (The 21-member board of replacements for the Regents is a good step in that direction.) We need to learn to use the new flexibilities quickly and efficiently. We need to build a human resources system that allows us to reward our Star employees and as well as the teams of support staff who make their accomplishments possible. We need true merit pay and we need to be very careful to manage that responsibility fairly.
There is no doubt that the risks and rewards of the PA are significant, but frankly it is an exciting opportunity for our campus and in my view LONG overdue. Recent events in the legislature indicate that the PA is not anywhere near a certainty, so if you have an opinion but sure to let your legislator know. Cheers.
