Highlights Archives
Crippling Budget Cuts Force Tough Choices
Facing gut-wrenching choices in order to meet unprecedented cuts in the state's 2003-05 biennial budget, the Society's Board of Curators has adopted a plan to permanently slash thirty state tax-supported jobs and $1.5 million in each year of the biennium, resulting in layoffs affecting ten people occupying the equivalent of eight full-time positions. The other twenty-two positions cut by the board's action did not require additional staff layoffs because the jobs were either vacant or soon to become vacant because of retirements, or because the incumbents in those jobs were shifted to non-state-tax-supported funding sources. And while work continues to win legislative support for softening the blow to the Society as the budget process unfolds, a grim picture has emerged of the potentially draconian impacts the cuts will have if not mitigated.
 Dan Stephans volunteers his time and expertise to help prepare a donated Harley-Davidson motorcycle for permanent exhibit at the Wisconsin Historical Museum. The position that coordinates thousands of hours of volunteer service to the museum was among the casualties of the deep budget cuts made necessary by the cuts identified for the Society in the state's 2003-05 biennial budget. The Society's plight has not gone unnoticed by its members, constituents, and patrons past and present. Letters of support for the Society's efforts to seek parity from legislators deliberating the impending budget cuts have poured into the Capitol in Madison from throughout the nation and around the world. In a letter to Governor Doyle, Senator Alberta Darling and Representative Dean Kaufert, who co-chair the Joint Committee on Finance, George Miles, curator of the Yale Collection of Western Americana at The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, writes, "Scholars choose to teach in Wisconsin and talented librarians aspire to work in Wisconsin because of the Society. National Organizations underwrite programs at the Society because of the state's demonstrated support and the Society's record of achievement. All of this is endangered by the current budget proposal."
Gerry Kearns, former associate professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who now lectures at the University of Cambridge in England, echoes those sentiments. ". . . I know how important the collection is as a resource for North American history. It gives graduate students and faculty at the university a distinct competitive advantage in this field. Were the collection not maintained, this advantage would be squandered. Please think again about the scale of damage being inflicted," writes Kearns in another letter of support.
Ohio State University Professor of History Michael Les Benedict added his voice to the chorus of cries for Governor Doyle and the Legislature to reconsider the severity of the Society's cuts, citing its longstanding educational mission. "Wisconsin has a proud reputation in the field of education, dating back to its leadership role during the Progressive era," Benedict writes in a letter to the governor. "It is still considered the state most dedicated to education of all the states of the Midwest, and this is an enviable reputation to have. It sets Wisconsin apart from other states in a way that most would envy; it is counter-productive in the long term to diminish that reputation even for important short-term reasons," Benedict writes.
These comments provide just three examples of numerous impassioned pleas to the governor and legislators appealing for relief from the severity of the impending budget cuts the Society faces. Visit the letters of support page to view letters by other prominent supporters of the Society.
:: Posted April 15, 2003
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