<p>One thing I have learned is that when people are throwing around terms like budget cuts you have to ask-cuts in what? Often it is a cut to the expected increases and not a "real" cut where you have fewer dollars in nominal terms. For UW Madison the total budget using just state funds and tuition collected is going from $670 million in 2011-2 to $751 million for 2012-13. The rest of the budget comes from Fed funds, gifts, dorm contracts, sports and all that stuff. They tend to go up on their own with inflation or more. So while not a great picture because there were no general raises for staff, again, it appears the basic functions will go on without too much alarming negative change. We'll see what the year after brings but Dems did win control of one house so they cannot be steam-rolled as they were last session. Good news is apparantly the state is now running a small surplus.</p>