CONTACT: Representative Dave Murphy
[email protected], (920) 378-1424
MADISON, WI — Tonight, the Wisconsin State Assembly adopted its version of the state
biennial budget. The budget enumerates improvements to I-41 and Highway 15, continues the tuition freeze for undergraduate Wisconsin residents attending UW System campuses, provides UW System with the largest budget it has ever seen, and increases funding for K-12 education by more than $600 per student. The adopted Assembly version of the budget also cuts taxes by more than half a billion dollars.
State Representative Dave Murphy (R–Greenville), voted in favor of the budget, stating,
“although no budget is perfect, I’m content to vote for a budget bill that will expand access to health care, provide our universities with necessary funding, put money directly into local K-12 classrooms, and cut taxes for hardworking Wisconsinites. I’m proud to vote for a budget that will bring safer roads to the Fox Cities, by beginning the process of expanding I-41 north of Appleton and completing Highway 15 improvements.”
As chair of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, Representative Murphy
offered his thoughts on the impact on UW System in the biennial budget bill, “UW System will have the largest budget it has ever had in the bill be adopted tonight, due to increases in state taxpayer dollars, program revenue, and additional money from other sources. No one can honestly claim this is a cut, unless they are using fuzzy math.”
“In the past, UW System displayed a lack of respect for student dollars, spending above their means and contributing to the student debt crisis. UW System still maintains a large revenue balance. At $1.3 billion, they have the largest amount on hand ever, $100 million larger than in 2013 that caused the legislature to reexamine the university’s use of tuition dollars and impose the tuition freeze. The freeze required UW System to tighten its belt and really focus on what’s important, student instruction. Despite cries that the sky is falling, over the course of the tuition freeze we’ve seen graduation and student retention rates improve, because resources were reallocated to where they belong, in the classroom.”
