Budget Request

Mike thinks the UW Board of Regents can do more to save money. I have doubts about that. For example, there's always a lot of talk about cutting administration. While UW has more bureaucracy than I would like, a lot of it is necessary to cope with state and federal financial management guidelines, and during my years in Middle East Studies, those became stricter rather than more lenient. Leaving those positions aside, where would you make the cuts? Advising? Financial aid? There's probably a lot of wiggle room in places like housing and athletics, but that's all I can think of. The University also does a lot already to try and find private funding, and I heard from the Dean's office frequently on that topic last year. However, you can't just snap your fingers and conjure up funding out of nowhere. For one thing, you need to employ people to work on it, and for another, you need to have donors interested in basic university functions as opposed to special projects they find interesting.