MILWAUKEE – University of Wisconsin officials apparently believe that the public should have no input on the UW system’s proposed budget – even though the UW system is a public entity, largely funded by taxpayers.

UW officials refused to reveal the details of their proposed 2016-17 operating budget until the university Board of Regents prepares to vote on it Thursday, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

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The State Journal requested details about the budget under a supposedly legally-binding public records request, but got nowhere.

That means the public will likely no opportunity to react to and comment about the university’s spending plans for 2016-17 before they are finalized.

That fact will probably bother a lot of people, since the budget is the first to be adopted since the state cut $250 in aid to the UW system. That cut means that student costs – other than in-state tuition, which has already been frozen by the state – could increase in a number of areas, to make up for the lost funding.

A university spokesman already admitted that one budget proposal calls for increasing student fees by an average of $59 per student across the UW system, the State Journal reported. But which fees will be increased? By how much? Will fees be higher on some campuses than others?

Most importantly, shouldn’t the public have the right to tell the Board of Regents how they feel about the increased fee proposal – and anything else in the proposed budget – before the regents vote?

It would be like American citizens having no details about the proposed federal budget before Congress votes on a final resolution.

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“The Regents are scheduled to discuss and vote on the 2016-17 annual operating budget, as well as tuition and fee schedules, at a meeting Thursday at UW-Milwaukee, according to an agenda,” the State Journal reported.

“But less than 24 hours before that vote — and days after officials posted meeting materials online providing detailed information about other items on the agenda — UW had yet to release the operating budget on its website or in response to a Wisconsin State Journal request for the document under the state’s open records law.

“Open government advocates say there’s no legal reason for UW to withhold the documents if they have been shared with the Regents and requested under the records law.

“(UW) Spokesman Alex Hummel said in an email Wednesday afternoon that officials have not finished drafting the budget, and that it will be released only once the Regents start their discussion of it around 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

“Last year, before the Regents approved the System’s current operating budget, officials released the proposed budget and discussed it in detail with the media three days before the board met. UW officials finished drafting that budget well before the Regents’ meeting despite the fact that state lawmakers had not yet passed their budget and had at one point earlier in the year changed the System’s funding allocation.”