Here & Now

Renee Wachter On UW-Superior Buyout Offers

Frederica Freyberg:

From the federal government to the State. University of Wisconsin campuses have started offering buyouts to senior staff in efforts to cut costs in the midst of the Governor’s budget proposal to trim $300 million from the uw system, campuses like UW-Superior, which was already in financial hurt. Wisconsin Public Television is part of the UW System. When we spoke to Superior Chancellor Renee Wachter last summer, she had cut two undergraduate programs and laid off buildings and grounds workers. As part of our ongoing “Budget Watch” coverage, she joins us again tonight for the latest budget news and, Chancellor, thanks very much for doing so.

Renee Wachter:

Thank you for having me on.

Frederica Freyberg:

As we said last July, you were figuring out to cut $4.5 million out of your budget over the next five years. Now the latest budget proposal. In the worst case scenario for UW-Superior, how much has to be cut at this point?

Renee Wachter:

If you were to take a look at the numbers that have been out there so far, in terms of what’s being proposed, it would be something like another 12% of our budget, which for us is a very significant number. There’s some questions of whether or not that might not be higher, depending on what happens with other kinds of discussions going on, not just the budget cuts themselves. So we’re really waiting to see sort of what that number is going to look like.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is the number, another 12% of your budget?

Renee Wachter:

It’s another $2.3 million over the biennium, and it could go as high as $2.7, so it’s quite substantial.

Frederica Freyberg:

And it could go to $2.7 because of these other factors you’re talking about, and what are those?

Renee Wachter:

Having to do with costs associated should the public authority go through as proposed.

Frederica Freyberg:

And how — I thought that was supposed to save campuses money if the public authority went through as proposed. It might end up costing?

Renee Wachter:

It might, just because of the way costs get shifted around, and there’s no doubt that, I think, over time the flexibilities in particular will help campuses save money, save costs, certainly speed projects to completion faster, which in turn saves money. But up-front initially it requires some juggling around.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of kind of juggling around, you are among four — three other campuses, Eau Claire, Green Bay and Oshkosh, that are offering these buyouts to senior employees. What are the details of that on your campus?

Renee Wachter:

So we’ve offered it across the campus, in looking at ways that we could reduce costs. One of the most significant costs that we have on our campuses are personnel, and there’s no easy way to go about it. This is one of the ways that we thought that we could give people some control over their lives, given all the uncertainty that’s going on. So, again, it went out across the campus. It’s open to almost all employee classes that would be able to qualify for the Wisconsin Retirement plan. And they have a certain period of time to get back to us and respond whether or not they’re interested. There’s a review period and more time for them to consider whether or not this is a step that they really want to take.

Frederica Freyberg:

How much are you hoping to save with those buyouts?

Renee Wachter:

We’re hoping of the employees that are eligible somewhere between perhaps a quarter to a third of those people might take advantage of it. The specific dollar amount really will depend on how many people actually step forward and where those positions are, within the organization.

Frederica Freyberg:

What does the potential loss of that kind of brain trust do to the campus and your students?

Renee Wachter:

It is difficult, I guess on a number of fronts. One is because many of these folks when you’re talking about, somebody typically like that that’s eligible for retirement, they’ve been — when we took a look at the number of years that they’ve been on our institutions, it may be 10, 15, 20, 25, in some cases 30 years. And so when you talk about organizational memory and history, all that history does indeed walk out the door. And that’s everything from the assumptions that you make about how your processes operate and we talk about faculty, we’re talking about some of the faculty who helped in some cases found the programs and have made them very successful for our students.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, if the staff doesn’t take these buyouts, will there then be layoffs?

Renee Wachter:

We would certainly have to start talking much more seriously about what that next step would look like. And one of the concerns is there’s such a short time frame in which to respond to whatever number winds up coming down the pike, and I think the challenge is people forget about the operation cycle of our universities. And if you talk about what a layoff process would look like, it can be quite lengthy, which adds to the challenges. And when you’re talking about if it were to happen on the faculty side, what does that do for our students in the programs, considering that students are going through on a four-year cycle.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, Chancellor, we will have to check back with you on this. We thank you very much for joining us here.

Renee Wachter:

Thank you for having me on.