ZOMG! The University of Wisconsin System Is Working!

It's one of those news stories that leaves one just shaking their head.

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It was reported that the University of Wisconsin system had a surplus of one billion dollars. But then when one takes out the amount of money that has already been earmarked for specific projects, that total fell to $648 million.  Of that money, over $400 million has also been committed, leaving the actual "surplus" to be $207 million.

This greatly reduced number, which has been deemed normal by an independent accounting expert, was still enough to send the usual suspects into a tizzy and an undie bundling apoplexy:

State Representative Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), Chairman of the Assembly Colleges and Universities Committee, is calling for the firing of President Reilly in response to the discovery of the surplus. Nass calls the newly-discovered money a “betrayal of public trust.”Nass calls Reilly a “fraud,” saying, “At the same time the legislature is trying to hold down tuition, he’s traveling around the state bashing legislators about how cuts to the UW System will destroy it. He used very harsh language while doing that. At the same time, he’s sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in tuition money taken from students.”

Nass says he will also introduce a budget amendment to freeze resident undergraduate tuition for four years.Fellow Republican Glenn Grothman, a state Senator from West Bend, won’t go as far as calling for Reilly’s “head,” but says he’s outraged the University President has been pushing for a tuition hike.Governor Scott Walker says in a statement, having a sizable surplus is disturbing, “especially at a time when students, families, and lawmakers have continually heard from the UW System about the need for more money to offset ‘devastating cuts’.” Walker’s budget allows for $181 million in funding for the colleges, but now some Republicans question whether that should happen. Reilly had said that $153 million of that amount is already committed for things like previously-approved UW construction and renovation projects, fringe benefit increases, as well as leases and utility costs.

GOP leaders in the state legislature are “outraged” with what they call the “mishandling of taxpayer dollars and the incompetence shown by university system administration.” In a press release Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), Joint Finance Co-Chairs Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette) and Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford), say: “We want to assure the university students and their parents that, at a minimum, this budget will include a two-year tuition freeze.”The Republican leaders say, “It is not only unfair to the students and their parents who keep getting hit with tuition hikes; it’s unfair to the taxpayers of Wisconsin.”

Their selective outrage is rather ironic when one considers that they were knocking their shoulders out of joint trying to slap themselves on the back when they had a surplus (which really isn't a surplus considering the debt also went up).

The fact that the UW System even broke even, much less has a surplus shows that the administrators were doing their jobs.

Given how badly the Republicans slashed their finances in the first budget, and given how the axemen of austerity are running amok like whirling dervishes during this budget session, it doesn't take a great leap of logic to expect that the UW system was going to receive another whack or three to their funding.

When you know bad times are a-coming, it only makes sense to squirrel away as much as you can to ease the pain as long as possible.  Ask any worker that has been affected directly or indirectly by Act 10.

But the Republicans really need to shut their hypocritical pie holes until they can explain why WEDC still exists even though they lost track of tens of millions of dollars.  Then they can also explain what happened to the hundreds of millions of dollars that were supposed to go to job creation yet created no jobs.

All the Republican's selective outrage is about is to give them an excuse to raid the funding of the university system and divert it to their wealthy campaign contributors.  After all, the road builders, ALEC and the Kochs didn't spend all that money on their elections for their good looks.

And speaking of raids, is anyone paying attention to the pension system and retirees benefits.  They're getting ready to raid those too, y'know.

Walker's Surplus

I have repeatedly pointed out that many of the things Scott Walker is doing as governor can be traced back to the misdeeds he did as Milwaukee County Executive.  I tried to cover some of the big things the other day when I looked back at the past ten years as my fellow Milwaukeeans and I fought to keep him from doing even more damage that he's already done.

Today, I was reminded that I missed at least one.  And that was the way he lied about the budget to put the hit on workers.

One of the most glaring examples came in 2009.  Walker started the year by immediately declaring a fiscal emergency, claiming there was a $15 million hole in the budget he had crafted.  And there was one because he had purposely, and illegally, included about that much money in concessions from the union.  Never mind that Walker never sat down with the unions to ask for the concessions.  Instead, he would run to squawking head Charlie Sykes and to the right wing media, crying about his self-imposed deficit and blaming the unions for it.

By midyear, he claimed that the deficit, still at that $15 million mark, required him to take emergency action and he ordered all county workers to take a reduced work week for an indefinite length of time.  The unions showed that they are still absolutely necessary, despite the right wingers' claims that they aren't needed anymore, by filing a grievance with the arbitrator.

The arbitrator heard the case.  During the hearing, it turned out that not only was Walker's attempted indefinite reduced work week illegal, but that there was no deficit, or if there was one, it was so negligible that it did not call for the drastic actions Walker was proposing.

At the end of the year, even though no concessions were given, the county still ended up with a surplus, thanks to the resourcefulness of the County Board.

Now flash forward to today.

Walker, in a desperate gambit to keep his job, Walker suddenly figured out that the state is allegedly on course for a supposed $143 million surplus next year.

Yeah, I was skeptical, but it wasn't until I received this statement from Team Barrett that things clicked into place:

"While Walker and his right wing allies gives themselves high-fives, the people of Wisconsin should know these numbers are built on sand.  Almost half of this amount comes from delaying payments that will ultimately cost taxpayers more in interest.  And these figures ignore the significant shortfall in the state's health programs.  If there is any extra money, Walker needs to explain if he will return any of the $25 million he raided from victims of the home foreclosure crisis, or the $105 million he added to the cost of college through increased fees, or reverse the taxes he raised on seniors and low-income people."

Bingo!

When they were finally able to reach a settlement with five of the nation's largest mortgage lenders, the state was to receive $140 million of it.  Of that money, $31.6 million coming directly to state government, Walker decided he was going to keep $25 million, per this article from Forbes (emphasis mine):

Walker is directing the State of Wisconsin to keep a large chunk of the money from this week’s national settlement with five of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders —money intended to help compensate those who were victims of the illegal mortgage practices that caused so many to lose their homes and to aid in the rebuilding of stricken neighborhoods—so that the state’s budget gap can be closed and Gov. Walker can head into his recall election able to claim that he has balanced the state budget.

Not coincidentally, immediately after this, there has been a drastic drop in home values, some people losing as much as $20,000 to $30,000, turning their mortgages upside down.  Likewise, it's not surprising that foreclosures are spiking.  I'm sure that the realtors who have thrown their support for Walker are very pleased with the results.

Likewise, he's throwing 17,000 people under the ambulance as he shoves them off of Medicaid programs.  And that's about a quarter of the number of people he originally wanted to cut out of receiving services.  Just as this move was also unnecessary, it could have been a lot worse if he didn't have the federal government keeping his sociopathic tendencies from running even more amok.

Add to this the college kids that can't go to school anymore because it's become unaffordable; public sector workers, some of whom are now eligible for financial aid because of his misanthropic Act 10; and the poor, elderly and disabled as he unnecessarily raised their taxes.

None of these things needed to happen. They only did because of the Republican's avarice and their need to feed the avarice of the people that buy their seats for them.

But don't worry, folks. If Walker holds true to his county executive days as much as he has already, you won't be seeing any of that surplus, if there really is one.  That money has already been earmarked for his favorite campaign contributors.

The only surplus that Walker has that he is willing to share with the people of Wisconsin his hypocrisy and dishonesty.