We met with Robin Van Harpen and Jerry Tarrer to discuss budget issues. They explained how the campus is considering giving up hiring authority for 154 vacant positions to save $3 million in fringe benefit costs. (UWM has hiring authority for 3260 FTE positions using state funds.) We continued with a more general discussion of budget cuts. At the April Regents meeting the campus reported about $15.9 million in cuts for 2015-16, and anticipates a similar cut for 2016-17. We also urged the budget officials to estimate the costs to academic programs of these cuts, particularly to general education.

We discussed two draft versions of changes to UWM P&P with reference to layoff and termination of faculty in light of Act 55 and will bring them to the Senate on Thursday.