Why Does Partisanship Matter in Local Elections?

Every election season I seem to be writing and talking a lot about the importance of non-partisan elections. I am pretty passionate about this topic, and I think some of the debate on social media and elsewhere misses the point. The issue (from my point of view and research) is not partisanship as an intrinsic good or bad, it is about conflict and the performance of governing boards. Entrenched conflict is when “Board coalitions (two or more individual members joining forces) tend to form along predictable lines (e.g. political party).” The linked Journal of Urban Affairs article is the largest school board study ever done, and it finds a negative relationship between conflict (operationalized using an index including the language I just shared) and attainment as measured by high school graduation rates. So conflict explicitly tied to party coalition negatively impacts outcomes.  

Here is a link to a separate study looking at California that similarly shows a link between conflict on school boards and district performance. There is additional research looking at city councils, but measuring performance objectively is harder to do for city councils. So, the school board research is the most powerful.

But why does partisanship matter in Oshkosh local elections? During my council tenure there have been a few boiler plate resolutions (one on policing comes to mind) that created non-substantive conflict in our deliberations. We were arguing about the origins of something as opposed to its merits. Therein lies the problem, explicit partisanship on non-partisan boards creates coalitions that sidetrack substantive debate. There are school boards in Wisconsin where we have seen party activity capture boards in ways that put party and politics above the actual jobs of a school board member. I don’t know if that will happen in Oshkosh, but I do know the party involvement in our Oshkosh elections risks a governing dynamic that begins in a place of conflict.

It is unlikely that partisan involvement will impact one specific policy issue. It is about what it does to the dynamic of a governing group, and the extent to which it limits our ability to function as a whole stronger than our parts. That is what really matters, and introducing entrenched conflict erodes our capacity to meet the needs of our residents. Why? Officials must worry about what team we are on before we can worry about responding to challenges old and new. It would be one thing if local legislative bodies were organized through political parties (like the state legislature) and partisanship served an institutional purpose. But they are not and do not.

I know this is not the simplest or cleanest explanation for why partisan involvement in officially non-partisan bodies is problematic, but it is based on research I’ve done for almost 10 years, and the science behind it is solid. If you look across the country the rise in partisan activity in local races is more of a far right thing in places like Florida, but in Wisconsin both major parties are involved. I get why they are, and I get why candidates play ball, but we are really playing with fire here. If you look at the history of non-partisan elections, it was a direct reaction to the corruption in the machine politics era of the early 20^th century. As these progressive reforms age it seems we forget why they occurred in the first place.

I know this matters to me more than others, but I literally spend every day teaching and researching this topic, and it breaks my heart to think the partisan dysfunction at the state and federal level could needlessly infiltrate our local governments. I also know mine is a losing message and people don’t want to hear it, much less engage with the substance of the issue. It is not about a distaste for politics or partisanship, it is about governing capacity and performance. In my little corner of the world as an elected official I worked to model how you can run, win, and govern in a non-partisan race without working with a party. It is possible, but I get I am in the minority. I also get that running in a partisan fashion (accepting political party endorsements and in-kind contributions) does not mean someone will govern that way, and I never and will never call out an individual for how they choose to campaign. Ultimately the voters get to decide if it matters to them. But, I feel obligated to share why it matters to me. The genie isn’t all the way out of the bottle yet, but when it is, I fear we cannot go back. And that would be a huge loss as local government is best-positioned to restore faith in our democratic governing institutions.  

The Case Against a Vote of No Confidence

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the state of affairs at UW Oshkosh (UWO). Why? I teach public budgeting, I spend much of my research time studying governance of public organizations, and I am personally invested in seeing UWO navigate our recent challenges. As I’ve stated numerous times recently (and over the last 10 years), I wish I could get a seat at the table on some of these committees, but alas I cannot control that, but I can share my thinking.

The debate around a vote of no confidence is difficult. Plenty of people I know and respect greatly are in favor of it. I of course respect their decision and reasoning. I also have no doubt they will respect my decision and reasoning. Part of shared governance is disagreement. Bottom line, I am not voting affirmative on the vote of no confidence. As I wrote recently, complex organizational failures have complex causes that make accountability difficult. I cannot in good conscience hold one person accountable for a collective failure. Why?

First, context matters. I know it sounds defensive when administration brings up the challenges facing higher education broadly and in Wisconsin specifically. It sounds like an excuse. But it is nonetheless accurate. The external situation, political and financial, has made governing UWO difficult to impossible. Consider, in 2001 the Universities of Wisconsin were funded with 33.1% GPR (I.e., the state), and 16.7% tuition. By 2023 only 18% of the system was funded by GPR, and 24.1% by tuition. For much of the same period there was a tuition freeze.

In other words, UWO leadership was tasked with running a complex organization with less state support, more reliance on tuition dollars, an inability to set tuition, and declining state supply of students. Attempts to increase enrollment, however well-intentioned, were unlikely to succeed when every other UW institution had the same plan. And nobody really was successful. Since the merger with the satellite campuses UWO’s enrollment decreased 19.1%. The regional universities combined saw a 10.6% decrease in enrollment. Why UWO’s decrease was worse than others is a legitimate question, but does not negate the fact we were facing an impossible external situation.

Second, the last ten years were tumultuous. UWO leadership had the fallout of the foundation scandal, two rounds of state cuts, the COVID disruption, and continuous legislative attacks regarding things like DEI, free speech, and more. I am sympathetic to the argument that all of these things could have been handled better, but at the same time, I must acknowledge the extent of the leadership challenge during this time. I am particularly sympathetic after seeing how many leaders in different communities, many of them UWO MPA graduates, struggled to navigate this difficult time period.

Third, us faculty need to acknowledge our role in this collective failure. I think of my own little corner of the world. During the institutional realignment process between 2016 and 2019, our program was graded a C, and deemed not worthy of additional resources. It was not administration making this determination, it was a committee of faculty and staff. I cannot tell you how this determination occurred. I can tell you our program was healthy at the time and growing. It was discouraging, lacked transparency, and perhaps worst of all, resulted in no actual change. Many other departments experienced the same frustration.

Our program was also cut a line at a time when we were growing. We were forced to drop an undergraduate minor that was growing because we had no faculty to teach the courses. Annual requests for additional faculty were denied by committees made up of faculty. Decisions were made to give leadership in my program less release time for administrative duties than other smaller programs. I have watched for years while programs with fewer students get lines, spousal hires, and more while we struggled to make things work.

I could go on, and my intent is not to point fingers nor complain, but rather to highlight some of the inequities on campus that cannot solely be laid at the feet of leadership. I do not blame any department or program that received resources. We all deserve resources. And I do not think these inequities were perpetuated intentionally. Rather, they were a result of a governance culture that was and still is broken.

I often go back to the 2016 budget work team, which attempted to understand our campus’ approach to budgeting, only to find that nobody on campus could explain how budget decisions get made. The group concluded that “Without a clear allocation methodology to work from, incremental adjustments that did occur were likely the result of the “influence model,” wherein adjustments accrue to deans/unit leaders who most aggressively lobby for additional resources.”

The group stated three questions:

• Were incremental changes clearly tied to strategic initiatives?
• Were incremental adjustments mission-centric?
• Is the influence model an acceptable means of change?

They concluded: “Clear answers to these questions could not be obtained.”

How did we get to a point where strategic decisions were divorced from financial realities? I cannot provide the history, but decades of opaqueness naturally led to the formation of in-groups and out-groups on campus, resource allocation decisions that had nothing to do with program performance, and a culture where protecting one’s own favored status was more important than transparency. I will gladly concede that these issues should have been addressed earlier. But I also must acknowledge that the culture problem, which is directly linked to our budget problem, predates the current Chancellor’s tenure by decades.

Fourth, I am encouraged by more recent actions to address some of our cultural problems. For the first time in years decisions are actually being made. My (and others’) pleas for transparency in decisions around chair releases, for connecting research releases to research output, and for making resource decisions based on program enrollments and performance are not falling on deaf ears. Painful decisions, and wow are they painful, are finally being made. Are they all the correct decisions? I do not think so. Look no further than my previous posts to see some of my concerns. But someone is finally willing to listen to some of these concerns. That is progress I have not seen in awhile.

Sixth, I fully concede there are things are current leadership could be doing better. I wish the Chancellor’s office would say four things. 1) We acknowledge we underestimated the extent of our budgetary challenge. 2) We acknowledge our current approach to budgeting is siloed and lacks the necessary transparency. 3) We overestimated our ability to fix the problem through limited measures. 4) We are committed to working with faculty and staff to build a transparent and performance-focused UWO (This 4^th statement is actually being said, which is encouraging).

At the same time I wish we faculty would acknowledge that drastic change is necessary if we hope to rebuild a UWO that works. There can be no sacred cows, no easy fixes, and no return to the way things were. I am just one voice, but I can tell you the way things were did not work for many. Such small steps from both faculty and university leadership could start to rebuild trust.

Which brings me to my final point. Right now we have a wildfire that is still burning, but it is at least contained. The vote of no confidence is kerosene on the wildfire. We are on the brink, and such a vote would, in my opinion, bring us over the brink. A vote would not be binding. Thus, the impacts of such a vote are going to be unpredictable. I could, as a matter of principle, support a vote and its consequences if the challenges we face were clearly the fault of one office. But my experience over the past ten years lead me to conclude it is not the fault of one office.  

Are there things I am critical of with the current Chancellor? Yes. I am a broken record in my complaints about our budget process, the inability to explain in detail where our deficit lies, and misalignment of resources in so many places. To put it another way, I have been vocal that our organizational bureaucracy is broken. It does not work. But once again, that is a collective failure decades in the making brought on by complex external factors, and too many short term decisions on both the academic and administrative sides of the university.

I have voiced these critiques publicly. I do not know if they will matter, but I do know the Chancellor, Provost, and COLS Dean’s office have been willing to listen. That is a welcome change, and one that gives me confidence that there is a genuine commitment to reform. Maybe it took too long, maybe we missed the warning signs, maybe some of the decisions are flawed. But, we are finally making decisions at a time when inaction is impossible. I cannot fault one office for that, even when I disagree with some specifics. That is the difficult work of leading a complex organization. And I hope the Chancellor and Provost have a chance to see this reform through. I hope faculty (myself very much included) are willing to engage even when we do not support specific actions. I hope we can all come out of our insular worlds and collaborate. 

So there is my case. It is not perfect. It is a little disjointed as we are in an impossible situation that is stressful and confusing. But I am, and will keep, doing my best to be honest with myself and others while respecting others’ rights to do the same.

Rebuilding UWO’s Culture

Last week UW Oshkosh released two potential academic restructuring ideas (Plan A and Plan B). Both reduce the number of colleges from 4 to 3, both create schools intended to group programs together, and both come with estimated cost savings for the university. It is hard to have too much of a reaction to either plan. They both are fairly similar, creating some needed balance in terms of student enrollment numbers and staffing FTEs. But neither plan is all that radical.

And that is not a critique. Structure does matter. Having a balanced efficient structural array of programs at UWO is important. However, a radical structural reform is simply not possible in the rule-driven bureaucratic environment in which the university operates. Again, not a critique, but a reality. Structural reforms, like those being proposed, require a balance between what is ideal, and what is possible.

What do I mean by that? Well, personally I think our MPA program has been undervalued at UWO. I can point to our enrollments, number of faculty, research output, and more to support my case. But I am biased. No doubt there are many other programs who also feel they have been undervalued, and who also can share evidence to support their case. Such is reality at a university, we all have our areas we, quite understandably, think are important. Hence a balancing act is required.

Personally, I am trying to show people across the organization a little grace at this moment. Our deficit, the painful layoffs, the resource inequities across programs, the disconnect between performance and resources, and the too often adversarial relationship between the academic and administrative side of our institution is a collective failure decades in the making. Such failures are not uncommon in public bureaucracies. As satisfying as it would be to place the blame on one leader, one governor, one legislator, one department, one decision, etc., we, in my opinion, cannot. Accountability is a much more complex animal.

In past blogs I have attempted to untangle where things went wrong. To summarize those writings, I think we collectively lost control of our bureaucracy. We need to regain control of it. That is why constructive engagement at this point is so important if we are to rebuild the UWO we all want and our state deserves. Neither proposed academic restructuring solves our issues. But they are a part of the process that can serve as a foundation for the important work to follow.

That work? Rebuilding a functioning bureaucracy starts with budgetary reform that aligns performance and incentives, eliminates unneeded complexity, and is transparent to the point of being broadly understood. That reform (easier said than done) is the driver for cultural reform. For example, we can incentivize collaboration across programs by passing a portion of savings from mergers and other cost saving measures to departments. We can ensure departments and programs have all-in budgets that account for supplies and staffing. We can align research releases with research output as an alternative to the all or nothing research release approach.

Perhaps most important, we can create transparent policies for release time, summer compensation, and job duties for department chairs, program coordinators, and other service commitments. The current situation is a patchwork of handshake agreements made over the years that lacked consistency and transparency. Again, I do not think there is anyone to blame here, when a bureaucracy fails to function as designed something emerges to take its place. That is natural. But what emerges is less efficient, less transparent, and less effective. Plus, it erodes trust and morale among the rank and file. While I know it is not entirely fair, in my experience we have many policies for minor things, and too few policies for major things.   

I know we can get there as an institution. But it will take some humility across the organization. As a program coordinator I need to think about steps I can take to ensure my house is in order. That is something I can control. As a faculty member I need to engage, in good faith, in our reform process. Asking questions, giving the benefit of the doubt, and sharing critiques and ideas. My expectation is that the administrative side of the university will similarly act in good faith, listening, sharing and acting in response to faculty concerns and suggestions.

None of this is easy. It is by far the most difficult time in recent memory at UWO. But, I am hoping we can all give one another the benefit of the doubt until there is clear reason not to.      

The Powers of the Council, Mayor and City Manager in Oshkosh Government

What are the actual duties of the Mayor, Council, and City Manager in Oshkosh? It is no secret, and there is no reason to speculate, they are listed in Chapter 2 of our city code!

• The Mayor and Council are the seven members of our legislative body. They hold all legislative powers. Think of them as being akin to congress.

• The Mayor is the presiding officer of the council, meaning they preside at council meetings, perform ceremonial duties like issue proclamations, and nominate citizens for boards and commissions to be approved by Council. The Mayor has no executive authority, cannot veto legislation, and does not manage City operations. The position is akin to the speaker of the House. Most similar communities call the individual with these powers the Council President, Oshkosh is unique in calling the position Mayor. We directly elect our Mayor, most similar communities have the Council choose their presiding officer. The one exception is Eau Claire, whose citizens directly elect their Council President.

• The City Manager is the Chief Administrative Officer for Oshkosh. Meaning, the position in in charge of managing the day-to-day operations of the City. It is akin to a school district superintendent or private sector CEO. The City Manager serves at the pleasure of the legislative body.

Below is language directly from our City code:

Common Council Members

• Appointment and Removal of City Manager

The Council shall select a City Manager. The City Manager shall be selected by the Council purely on merit. In selecting the City Manager, the Council shall give due regard to training, experience, executive and administrative ability, efficiency, general qualifications, and fitness for performing the duties of the office. No person shall be eligible to the office of City Manager who is not by training, experience, ability and efficiency well qualified and generally fit to perform the duties of such office. No weight or consideration shall be given by the Council to nationality, political or religious affiliations, or to any other consideration except merit and direct qualifications for the office. Residence in the City or State shall not be a qualification for the Office of City Manager. The Council may remove the City Manager from office in accordance with Chapter 64 of the Wisconsin Statutes. [Statutory Reference §64.09 Wis. Stats.]

• Qualifications of Members

The Council shall be the judge of the election and qualification of its members, and may pursuant to state statute suspend or remove its members for cause. [Statutory Reference §17.12(1)(a) Wis. Stats.]

• Legislative Power

The Council shall possess and exercise all legislative and general ordinance powers imposed and conferred by general law or special charter upon the Mayor and Council and the various boards and commissions not inconsistent with Chapter 64 Wisconsin Statutes. The Council shall not have the power to enact special executive or administrative orders.

[Statutory Reference §64.07 Wis. Stats.]

• Attention to Duty.

Council Members shall devote such time to the duties of their office as the interests and general welfare of the City demand. [Statutory Reference §64.08 Wis. Stats.]

• Power to Fix Salaries.

The Council shall have power by ordinance to fix the salary of any successor Mayor and its own successors in office. [Statutory Reference §64.08 Wis. Stats.]

• Administrative Powers.

The Council shall, upon the report and recommendation of the City Manager, have the power to create general departments of city administration and to alter, reorganize or abolish by ordinance any administrative board or commission, with the exception of the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners. [Statutory Reference §64.10 Wis. Stats.]

• Annual Audit

At the end of each fiscal year, the Council shall cause a full and complete examination of all books and accounts of the City to be made by competent and public accountants who shall report in full to the Council. [Statutory Reference §64.12(4) Wis. Stats.]

• To Elect Deputy Mayor

At its first meeting on the third Tuesday following the spring general election the City Council shall select by majority vote, one of its members to act as Deputy Mayor, who shall preside over meetings and exercise all duties and responsibilities of the Mayor during a temporary absence or disability.

Mayor

The Mayor shall be the presiding officer of the Council and shall have a vote but no veto power.   It shall be the general duty of the Mayor or other presiding officer:

• Preside at Meetings

To open the session at the time fixed for the meeting, or at the time to which adjournment may be had, by taking the chair and calling the members to order.

• Announcement of Quorum

To announce or to have announced, at the conclusion of the roll call, the fact of the presence of a quorum or not, as the case may be.

• Presentation of Business.

To announce or to have announced, the business before the Council in the order in which it is to be acted upon.

• Receive Motions.

To receive and submit, in proper manner, all motions and propositions presented by members.

• Supervision of Voting

To put to a vote the questions which are regularly moved or which necessarily arise in the course of the proceedings, and to announce or to have announced the result.

• Enforce Rules of Order

To restrain the public and members of the Council within the rules of order while the Council is meeting and engaged in debate.

• Rule on Points of Order

To rule on any point of order or practice, subject to an appeal by any member.

• Issue Proclamations

To issue all proclamations.

• Appointments

To appoint, subject to Council approval, members to the various Boards and Commissions within the City.”

City Manager

DUTIES AND POWERS, GENERALLY

The City Manager shall be responsible for the administration of City government with the exception of those functions administered by appointed or elected boards. The City Manager shall have all of the powers necessary to discharge the responsibilities of the office, not inconsistent with the provisions of Chapter 64 of the Wisconsin Statutes. [Statutory Reference §§ 64.11 Wis. Stats.]

The City Manager shall have the following duties and responsibilities:

• Effect the enforcement of all laws and ordinances.

• Budget administration and budget preparation.

• Enforce all franchises, permits and privileges granted by the City to utilities.

• Protection of health, safety and welfare of the community within the standards of services adopted by the City Council.

• Maintain and operate parks, playgrounds and any other recreational facilities now owned or acquired hereafter by the City Council.

• Maintenance, operation and construction of streets, sewers, water plant and distribution system, sewage disposal plant and all other City owned facilities, buildings and equipment.

• All fiscal transactions of the City.

• Assuring the efficiency of all City services.

• Keep the Council informed on all matters.

• All administrative functions, including those heretofore mentioned.

• Perform such other duties as may be required by the Council.

The City Manager shall have the authority to:

• Authority to Appoint Officers; exception

Appoint, suspend, lay-off or dismiss all heads of departments, all subordinate city officials and all employees, except that this subsection shall not be construed as depriving the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners all the powers conferred by Section 62.13 of the Wisconsin Statutes. [Statutory Reference §64.11(3) Wis. Stats.]

• Authority to Appoint Temporary Heads of Departments/Divisions

The City Manager may appoint an acting director of any department or manager of any division if the director or manager is absent from the City or incapacitated or a temporary vacancy exists in the position and no person has been designated to be the acting director or manager or the person so designated is unable or unwilling to serve in the acting capacity.

• Authority to Promulgate Rules and Regulations

Prepare and put into effect any necessary administrative rules and regulations pertaining to purchasing, personnel, fiscal transactions, city services, and the conduct of employees.

• Public Works

Exercise all of the powers of the Board of Public Works.

• Emergency Powers

Take whatever action is necessary in purchasing or assignments of employees to protect the health, welfare, and the safety of the citizens of Oshkosh.

• Make Recommendation to Council

Make recommendations to the Council on all matters of municipal concern.

• Fill Vacancies

Fill all vacancies not to exceed budget allotments, except that this shall not be construed as preventing the Manager from filling the vacancy with a lower paid classification or leaving the position vacant, if, in the Manager’s opinion, the position does not need to be filled. This section shall not be construed to prevent the City Manager from creating or filling positions not specifically budgeted when in the Manager’s opinion such action is in the best interest of the City and is temporary in nature.

• Residual Executive Powers

Exercise all other executive powers conferred upon the Manager in Chapter 64 of the Wisconsin Statutes.

Where Does UWO Go Now?

Walking through campus last week was a strange experience. The students were not back yet, so it was quiet, but far quieter than the start of January. Offices that were bustling were now empty. Some familiar faces were gone. Now that the layoffs are complete it is going to be some time until we adjust to this new normal.

In the immediate term I’ve noticed some things taking longer than before. People on both the academic and administrative side of the university are asking for a little more grace as they try to do more with less. I myself am trying to navigate a world where I suddenly must advise 45 additional students from a program we inherited. Like so much on campus right now, it is a major challenge, but also an opportunity.

The lasting legacy of the recent layoffs, furloughs, and reorganization will be defined by what happens next. Will we reform our budgeting processes to align resource allocations with programming needs/enrollment? Will we root out inequities in program staffing, release time, and program staffing? Will we incentivize productivity in research, teaching, and impact? Will we eliminate redundant processes that plague our bureaucracy? Will we embrace a more flexible approach that focuses on broad goals rather than historical processes? Will we break down the silos that prevent innovation and collaboration? Can we make our budget truly transparent by making it logical an understandable to internal and external audiences?

In other words, can we build a new sustainable culture at UWO? Culture to an organization is akin to the personality of an individual. In my ten years at UWO our culture has been all over the place. Not without reason, as the state funding challenges, changing demographics, and COVID disruption made it hard to sustain anything. But sticking with my analogy, there are always things that you cannot control that will impact your mood, but your personality is something you can work on regardless of all the noise around you.

I have my ideas, many I have shared, but building a new culture in a complex bureaucracy takes a lot more than a few ideas from a random professor. It requires a strong foundation that enables true reform. How do we create such a foundation? Well, more ideas!

• First we have to recognize the need to change our culture. And by we I mean everyone, this is no time for faculty or administration to be defensive. S
• Second, we need a visible effort to streamline everything we do as a university. Why? We just made really painful changes, everything is going to be harder, and a coherent strategy for making things more efficient can build confidence in the future of the institution.
• Third, we need to avoid designing a horse by committee when plotting our future. Keep it simple. Whether it is defining research enhanced, creating a new mission statement, articulating enrollment goals…whatever…the simpler the better. If it is not simple, it is not clear, and it is not actionable.
• Fourth, and broken record alert, use budgetary reform as the engine for rebuilding the culture of UWO.

Nothing can undo the pain of the layoffs and austerity measures. So many good people lost their jobs. But what happens next is absolutely crucial for the future of UWO’s culture. I hope we get where we need to be, and I hope to be involved at some point.

Where do the Universities of Wisconsin go from here?

A difficult semester at UW Oshkosh, the Universities of Wisconsin, and in higher education in general, became even more difficult with the Board of Regents’ rejection of a deal struck by the system president and the legislature. The whole saga is another example of the ongoing dysfunction of Wisconsin’s governing institutions. System employees like myself had a raise approved, then withheld by the legislature, then received an email from university leadership celebrating the deal, then saw the deal rejected the next day. None of it inspires confidence, and all of it is confusing.

I was grading papers for my freedom of speech class when I saw the announcement that the deal had fallen through. It is unmooring to read critiques regarding the system’s hostility to freedom of speech and intellectual diversity while teaching a class specifically on freedom of speech and intellectual diversity. Earlier this semester I moderated a panel on freedom of speech and expression on campus with UWO professors, President Rothman, and a representative from FIRE. It was an awesome example of what is possible when we embrace intellectual diversity and questions of free speech on campus. Making this issue, which is core to a functioning university, a political wedge issue is a choice. This semester at UWO we made a different choice, to take the topic on honestly and enthusiastically as a learning opportunity. And it is working. I don’t want to be a pawn in a culture war, I want students to know their constitutional rights, to experience true intellectual diversity, and to be comfortable discussing uncomfortable topics.

I was also struck by the some of the comments around shared governance being supportive of the rejected deal. My least popular opinion on campus is probably my belief that shared governance needs some serious reimagining. This may be more specific to UWO, but when I see the inequities in program staffing and support across campus, I cannot help but ask whether our governance processes enable such inequities. Do our longstanding processes contribute to a culture where the administrative and academic sides of our institution are adversarial? A bigger question is whether faculty and staff have confidence in the shared governance process. In my observations over the past ten years I see plenty of red flags, i.e., something being supported by shared governance processes does not equate to something being supported by those the shared governance process is intended to represent. That creates an impossible situation that is not fair or constructive for those participating in the process, or those impacted by the process. Worse, the disconnect breeds mistrust at all levels of the institution.

To my original question, where do we go from here? I favor embracing reform. At UWO, this would mean our layoffs and academic reform processes include budgeting reform, shared governance reforms including a new faculty constitution, and the taking of deliberate steps to unify the administrative and academic sides of the university. In other words, we need to rebuild our culture at all levels of the institution. That work is harder than restructuring or cutting costs, but it is also the work that will make all the other reforms successful. Without budgetary and cultural reform, we are at risk of repeating the mistakes that got us to this untenable point.

On that note, it is ok, and in fact important, to admit that mistakes have been made. We clearly underestimated the extent of our fiscal challenges. We made mistakes in allowing cost-recovery programs to operate at a loss. On the faculty side, we made decisions through the shared governance process that too often protected things that weren’t working at the expense of things that were. We can all own these mistakes as part of the process of moving forward. The issue of declining state support is beyond our control. But there are things we can and should own. I would like to think that would create some external goodwill, but even it does not, I know it would help internally.  

From the system standpoint we need to act more like a system. More collaboration, less duplication, and more efficiencies. We need to identify barriers to cross-campus collaborations and eliminate them. Why struggle individually when we could thrive collectively? If I were king I would create a commission with representatives from each UW institution with the express purpose of creating collaborations and new efficiencies. Embracing reform from the bottom up is also protection from having reform thrust upon you from political actors who may have divergent interests.

Clearly I do not have all the answers. But I want to do all I can to be part of the solution. For now that is pretty much sharing my thoughts and taking proactive steps in my corner of the world (Like that freedom of speech course). But I know there is so much talent at UW schools sharing my solutions mindset. I hope we have the collective foresight to tap that talent and control what we can control for the students and residents of Wisconsin.

Guiding Values of Budgetary Reform at UWO

I keep prattling on about the the importance of budgetary reform at UWO. But what does that look like? There is no off the shelf way to reform. But, we can articulate the guiding principles of a budgeting approach that aligns UWO strengths and priorities, faculty incentives, and transparency demands, with available resources. These aren’t perfect, but hopefully they can spur some needed discussion.

Guiding Principles:

1. The budget model must provide adequate funding levels so that funding can facilitate, rather than be a barrier to, student and program success. This may mean offering fewer programs and initiatives, which is uncomfortable, but also reality.
2. The budget model must be equitable. This means that funding allocation decisions must be based on criteria consistently applied (and fully understood) across colleges and programs.
3. The budget model must be logical, i.e., funding decisions are driven by program performance in a way that is clearly communicated to all. Exceptions, or priority areas, should be fully explained with rationale accessible to all.
4. The budget model should be all-inclusive at the program/department level. Every department/program should know (all in!) how its revenues compare with expenditures.
5. The budget model should strive for pro-active transparency. Meaning, a dashboard detailing revenues and expenditures across programs, colleges, etc. should be freely available to all in real time.
6. The budget model should prioritize student and program success. This means funding decisions should be explained annually in a manner linked to strategic goals.
7. The budget model must be understood. This means sunsetting acronyms that obfuscate spending decisions, and setting targets for programs and departments are tied to faculty staffing.
8. The budget model should incentive innovation across the campus. Meaning, revenue generation replaces enrollment as the key performance metric.
9. The cost recovery model should be reformed by differentiating between programs designed to be self-sufficient, and those designed to be subsidized by a central fund. Cost recovery programs should have performance contracts that require them to be profitable over a period of time, or, they will lose their status. There should be no black box here.
10. The budget model should be decentralized so as to reward fiscally responsible programs with flexibility on how their excess revenues are spent.
11. Fiscal decisions should be streamlined via the rule of three…no more than 3 layers of approval for any fiscal decision.
12. We should strive for a balance between centralized processes that create equity across programming, and decentralized processes that allow differentiation between programming.
13. Budgetary processes should be consistent across academic and non-academic programming to break down structural barriers between academic and administrative offices.
14. Performance targets across departments and programs that are accessible to all.

Successful Academic and Cultural Reform at UWO Begins with Budgetary Reform

As UW Oshkosh continues its reform process, I keep banging the drum to lead, first and foremost, with budgetary reform. And, in every meeting I can weasel my way into, I plead that faculty who study public organizations are engaged in that process. It is a huge mistake to view budgeting as accounting, or strictly money flows. In a successful organization with a clear vision it is so much more. It is a plan, it creates legitimacy for decision making across the organization, it prevents rumors and half-truths, and it communicates to our stakeholder why we are doing what we are doing.

Let me share an example from my time as department chair. Every year I would get a department “budget.” I put that in scary air quotes because it really wasn’t a budget. It was an allocation amount for office supplies and other minor expenses. It did not include the big things, which are the cost of faculty on the expense side, and the amount of revenue we were bringing in through student enrollments. In other words, I may have been in charge of the “budget,” but it was a budget that was divorced from what my program actually costs, and what it actually brings in.

In such an approach to budgeting incentives are absent. If I save money on supplies, those funds are absorbed back at the end of the year. If we increase enrollment, i.e., university revenues, it has no impact on faculty pay, teaching loads, or research support. At times the incentives are backwards. Raising external research funds often means more work without more pay. For example, this semester I am teaching a course funded by an external donor. What does that mean? Well, it means the university saves money by not having to pay me with state funds, but my overall compensation is the same. While I think such innovations are the future of higher education, and I am very stubborn in working to demonstrate what is possible in higher education, I get why people ask why they should innovate. More troubling, a budget model in which performance and incentives are misaligned hurts morale, and feeds into a fatalist culture at an incredibly sensitive time.

Then there is the issue of transparency. We can say we have an $18 million deficit for next year, but we do not seem able to fully articulate where the deficit lies. What is losing money and what is not losing money? Our inability to articulate specifics has an ongoing negative impact. External stakeholders, like the legislators controlling the Universities of Wisconsin budget, point to the ambiguity as evidence of mismanagement. Internally it leads to rumors and accusations. For example, I hear people complain over and over again about the marching band, and how that is the cause of our financial challenges. That is an absurd conclusion given the complexity of our fiscal challenges. But without a counter-narrative, such rumors and accusations fester and spread.

To be clear, there are reasons for the disconnect between performance and incentives, the opaqueness of our budgetary processes, and the inability to articulate specifics about our deficit. We have bureaucratic processes from a time and place that no longer exists. Attempting to apply governance models from 50 years ago to today just does not work. Our budgetary processes have grown far too complex over time to the point where they are not broadly understood. It follows that the inability to give specifics about where the deficit lies is not due to a lack of will, it is more likely a bureaucratic reality where our budget processes are too complex and confusing to translate into simple explanations. That is why I continue to fight back against simple narratives that assign blame to one actor or one situation. As I wrote earlier this week, accountability in a complex organization is not that simple.   

Genuine budget reform is a precursor to the cultural reform necessary for UWO to come out of this crisis successfully. A culture of performance begins with aligning faculty and department incentives with performance. A culture of trust requires a budget model that can be easily understood and explained to internal and external stakeholders. A culture of efficiency requires real time budgetary and performance information available to leaders at all levels of the organization. A culture of accountability cannot exist without budget reforms based on transparency and clear ownership of programming.

You will note I keep saying culture. That is not an accident. It is also why I am so passionate about advocating for faculty who study public organizations and their budgeting processes to be part of the reform process. Public organizations are different than private organizations. Take a university. Could you imagine running a business where you cannot always set your prices (the tuition freeze), hire and fire your employees (tenure), are bound by rules based on external funding of just 17 percent of your budget, and your ability to do simple things like offer raises is dictated by political actors?

Not to mention the issue of profit. Universities, by design, do some things that are not profitable in pursuit of the larger mission. And that larger mission is far more complex that most private enterprises. Not better or more noble, but just different. Our budgetary processes, it follows, need to be different than those in the private sector. Which is why I keep pleading to go beyond the usual (and very much needed) perspective from those that specialize in private sector finance. Successful budgetary reform at UWO requires engagement with the many folks on campus who study public organizations. Such folks are sprinkled across majors and colleges, and failing to engage them is a self-inflicted wound, and a huge missed opportunity to use budgetary reforms to create a new culture for the benefit of our university, community, and state.

To put it more succinctly, academic reforms implemented within the current culture are likely to fail, budgetary reform is the key to changing UWO’s culture in a way that can make other reforms successful.  

Reforming UW Oshkosh

Premise

Regional comprehensive universities operate in a between space, they are neither R1 flagships whose primary purpose is academic research, nor are they liberal arts universities whose primary purpose is teaching. As articulated in the UWO 2030 strategic plan, UWO seeks to be a research-enhanced university built on a foundation of transparency, innovation, inclusiveness, and alignment of programming and research with Wisconsin’s workforce needs.

Realities

There are challenges that make realization of UWO’s basic goals challenging:

• Declining state support for higher education, combined with declining enrollment, make the existing university infrastructures around staffing, shared governance processes, faculty incentive structures, program offerings, and traditional division of duties, unsustainable.
• Inequities in faculty recruitment and retention along gender, LGBTQ+, international, geographic and racial lines suggest more work is needed in fostering a culture of belonging.
• The academic and administrative sides of the university are often working at cross-purposes, and at times are in direct conflict with one another.
• Higher education is politicized as a culture war issue in Wisconsin, threatening faculty recruitment and retention, as well as faculty morale and future financial resources and flexibility.
• Longstanding bureaucratic processes are not universally understood nor consistently applied. Frequent turnover and use of interim employees exasperates these bureaucratic challenges.
• The bureaucratic structures of the universities are inefficient, outdated, and divorced from UWO’s mission.

Reforming

1. Brand UW Oshkosh as an outward facing Problem Solving University

The Wisconsin Idea states that the positive impact of UW system institutions should stretch beyond the walls of the classroom and into communities across Wisconsin. There is an opportunity for UWO to independently build and highlight faculty and program connections with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. An outward facing brand establishes UWO’s identity in a way that is understood to outside constituencies.

This branding is consistent with objective 4.1 of the current strategic plan: “Establish a new and distinctive UWO identity and brand proposition.”

2. Define meaning and goals of being a research enhanced university

UWO’s strategic plan references being a research enhanced university, but the meaning is vague. While work to operationalize this as undergraduate research is noble, such an approach does not resonate with external audiences. Explicitly defining research-enhanced as a university that 1) Aligns faculty research with state economic and social needs, and 2) Provides students with practical skills that translate to state workforce needs, clarifies why being a research enhanced university matters. In other words, we focus research on Wisconsin’s pressing needs to improve the state, and to establish a talent pipeline to meet Wisconsin’s workforce needs.

3. Prioritizing outreach in a way that advances belonging in Wisconsin

UWO should work to attract and retain faculty with the ability to partner with and facilitate long-term, community-based participatory research with public, private, and nonprofit constituencies working with underserved populations in Wisconsin. Ideally building community connections fosters a more inclusive climate at UWO, attracts a more diverse student body, attracts a more representative faculty, and advances a culture of belonging throughout Wisconsin. 

4. Modernize paths to tenure and post-tenure review

The traditional faculty workload, 40 percent research, 40 percent teaching, and 20 percent service neither reflects reality, nor allows for programs and faculty to maximize the value of their faculty. Different paths to tenure, including teaching professor, research professor, community service professor, and other field-specific hybrids, should be encouraged. Faculty and departments should also be able to switch their path at different points in their career.

5. Shift from enrollment-driven decision-making to revenue-driven decision making

The current emphasis on enrollment maximization is tied specifically to revenue. However, declining state support for higher education is forcing departments to diversify their revenue portfolio. Ideas for revenue generation include:

• Sponsorships and donations
• Professional development seminars
• Fee-for-service projects
• The ability for faculty to buy out teaching responsibilities with professional duties.

6. Greater department autonomy for establishing teaching loads

Related to number 5, shifting from enrollment targets to revenue targets would allow different departments and programs to implement their own required teaching loads based on their earned revenues.

7. Eliminating overloads tied to external funding

Current limits on faculty overloads for external funding incentivizes faculty to do consulting outside the university and its brand. Allowing faculty to exceed overload limits for external support would bring more money into the university and incentivize faculty and programs to connect UWO with public, private, and nonprofit sector needs. In addition, faculty should be allowed to take leave for professional service in their field of study.8

8. Streamline administrative structures

An inordinate amount of time and resources is spent navigating a complicated administrative structure. Reform both the academic and administrative bureaucracy with the following goals:

• Creating merged academic departments with no less than 10 faculty members.
• Reform college divisions and allow them to be the final decision-points for academic programming decisions in their division.
• Ensure administrative approval processes have no more than three levels of approval, 1)The initial department, 2) The budget office, and 3) The deciding entity, i.e. Dean, VC, etc.
• Decentralize decision-making to the department level in manner consistent with the revenue-target philosophy.
• Formalizing connections between the academic side and administrative side of the university by offering time buyouts for administrative duties for faculty at all ranks, and offering teaching opportunities for administrative staff in relevant areas.

9. Rebuild academic shared governance structures through a new faculty constitution

The faculty constitution is built on a foundation that no longer reflects institutional realities. It exists to perpetuate a bureaucratic structure, rather than to govern a bureaucratic structure that meet’s institutional goals.

10. Appoint/recruit new university leaders and/or invest in professional development for current leaders to ensure they have the skills and foresight to implement these initiatives, continuously evaluate the environment, and forecast future issues so they can be proactively addressed

Leadership is vital in times of crisis. There has been little to no application of skills in areas such as effective communication, crisis communication, conflict management, and managing organizational change. There are also few professional development opportunities for leaders to gain such skills. A time of budgetary cuts must be coupled with a time of investment in what we do value and need as an institution. Professional development of leaders at all levels – department, college, and university – is a critical need.

Impact

The end goal is an efficient university with a clear outward facing identity that aligns faculty expertise, community engagement, state workforce needs, state social needs, and legislative expectations for higher education in Wisconsin.

Reflecting on UWO’s Budget Challenge

First and foremost I think we all need empathy for those losing their jobs. There are going to be many people who gave so much to UWO losing their positions for reasons detached from their job performance. That is awful. There is really no other way to describe it. While us faculty who are keeping our jobs are in a better place, we cannot ignore the reality of what faculty are facing. The time and mental energy spent trying to navigate the first few weeks of this semester after the budgetary news broke has been immense. And I can tell you personally it is the most challenging time I’ve faced in my ten years at UWO.

I keep asking myself how hard does it have to be to be successful here? The academic job market is a national one, and we are going to lose faculty. We need to be prepared for that. We are in a tenuous space when it comes to faculty morale, we need to work to make sure this is the low point, and that we can reform this institution in a way that is widely understood and embraced. I think there is a way to do that, but it is going to be hard.

It begins with an honest autopsy of how we got here. Were there signs missed? I think employees want to know what parts of the university led to this deficit, specifically. Which cost recovery programs weren’t recovering their costs? Are there things we do on campus that consistently lose money? Is there administrative bloat. The other side of that coin is that staff and faculty have to accept changes to their own programs if they are not financially sustainable.

Next, we have to be willing to rebuild our bureaucracy and culture. That means all of us being less territorial, less transactional, more open to differentiation and flexibility in our teaching and scheduling, and honest about the ability of our current processes to meet the needs of our institution and those we serve. We don’t want infighting, internal conflict plays right into the hands of higher education’s fiercest critics.

We also need, in my opinion, budgeting reform geared toward proactive transparency. That means an approach that is easily understood, provides management at all levels of the organization with real time information, and one that is tied to performance. Most important, our approach to budgeting should be based on the reality of our institution today, not decades of incremental changes to processes that have served to compound confusion and make it difficult to spot signs of trouble.  

Related, we need to shift our focus from enrollment to revenue. Tuition dollars are going to be harder to come by, if the real goal is resources, we need to embrace and reward innovation. Tuition dollars matter, of course, but faculty can bring in revenue in other ways. We’ve always approached that as a tertiary thing separate from teaching and research, when in fact it could be huge value-add to the state.

These are just some things going through my mind. I know my colleagues are among the brightest minds there are, so I look forward to hearing there ideas too. Bottom line, it is going to be a rough time, we need a reset, and we need to get the reset right. That will require a lot from all of us.