UW-Platteville is eliminating 111 positions — about 12 percent of the campus workforce — to help make up for a structural deficit, Chancellor Tammy Evetovich told university staff in an email.
“I realize that these decisions are much more than numbers and budgets. They affect our people,” Evetovich wrote yesterday.
Sixty employees will be laid off and 31 open positions have been cut.
On top of that, 32 employees took advantage of an early retirement incentive program. Twenty of those positions won’t be refilled.
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Evetovich said through various changes, including layoffs, the university has reduced its fiscal year 2025 deficit by more than $9 million and will have a balanced budget in the coming year.
“While these changes are hard, please know they were informed by data and made strategically to focus on preserving student facing services and programs, eliminating duplicative functions, and adjusting employee categories to better align with enrollment changes over the last decade,” Evetovich wrote.
The announcement comes after both UW-Platteville and UW-Parkside had both previously announced they were considering layoffs and furloughs to address structural deficits and enrollment declines.
Meanwhile, UW-Oshkosh recently laid off 1-in-6 employees, UW-Platteville Richland has closed its doors, and both UW-Milwaukee Washington County and UW-Oshkosh Fond du Lac plan to end in-person instruction next year.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has pushed the Universities of Wisconsin to eliminate DEI positions in order to get more funding, including employee pay raises. The Rochester Republican has also offered the possibility of giving the Legislature back position authority in exchange for the raises.
See the email here.
