UW-L Legislative
Liaison Joe Heim predicts that layoffs directed toward younger, more recently
employed professors will follow the tuition freeze currently occurring at all UW schools.
Heim has worked with legislative issues
at UW-L for about 15 years now and has seen this happen before. He says the
results of the tuition freeze will be “painful.” The freeze will reduce surplus
funds for a year or two. After the
initial effects, universities will begin to suffer and layoffs will occur. Layoffs are likely to affect young professors
recently out of school. Many older professors have tenure or other security
with the universities.
It was discovered that the UW system as a
whole set aside 648 million dollars at the end of 2012 year. Universities set aside money in case of
emergencies. According to Heim, 10-15
percent of money at UW-L is put aside. A
bill passed in the summer of 2013 froze university tuitions. Legislators believed that if tuitions had
much surplus, it didn’t make sense to continue to increase the cost students
pay.
Some of the university’s money is "segregated." It can’t be spent on anything other than what it is
designated to. The money that students pay for school parking lots, for
example, goes to the funding it took to build the parking structure and cannot
be re-allocated to salaries or anything else.
