Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,

Due to the recency of our April 21 budget meeting, we will not hold the campus budget meeting that had been tentatively scheduled for May 10. I share the following updates from the last two weeks.

• We are currently seeing a total reduction in expenditures of $26M compared to last year. Of that, we expect to see $14M in savings for salaries and fringe benefits by the end of the fiscal year. While not all of these savings are permanent savings, this is impressive progress that is the result of hard work and difficult decisions.
• On May 3, I sent a message to the Deans and Division Heads, with copies to Governance Chairs, that we will not offer another Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP) at this time, and there are no plans to offer it in the future. The content of that message is available here. After examining our fiscal situation and receiving feedback, a VSIP will not provide the benefits of a budget management option as it did last year.
• Review of Vice Chancellors, Associate/Assistant Vice Chancellors and limited appointments is underway. Our plan is to utilize vacant positions as much as possible to address our reduction goals. In the event we cannot meet targets solely with vacancies, we will communicate clearly and as early as possible with those affected.
• Planning for Strategic Position Control continues, including during regular meetings with governance representatives and discussions about the process and review group composition. We will announce more details when they are available.
• Representatives from the College of Health Sciences, the College of Nursing, and the Zilber School of Public Health participated in their first meeting to discuss enhanced coordination and resource sharing in support of research, teaching, community engagement and support services.
• A group under the leadership of the Academic Budget and Planning Committee (APBC) has started its work to examine course duplication; their report is due in October 2016.
• The Integrated Support Services (ISS) project continues to move forward. Final steps are taking place to bring on a Huron Consulting expert who will help our teams with their analysis and formulation of recommendations. All stakeholders – those who receive services from the areas of Finance and Accounting, Human Resources, Information Technology, and Procurement – are encouraged to complete an ISS survey that will remain open until May 11.

The path before us is challenging and involves uncertainty, which is difficult. To keep you informed, we will continue to provide updates, both via campus budget meetings and messages, as budget-related efforts advance. Thank you for all that you do to support UWM.

Best regards,

Mark A. Mone
Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee