Update on UW System spending – WORT-FM 89.9
Two weeks ago, we reported on UW System contracts with Chicago-based consulting firm Huron. We found that between 2019 and 2023, the UW System and its campuses paid $51 million dollars just to Huron.
UW Administration spokesperson Mark Pitsch declined repeated requests to speak with WORT for that story. But he did speak with Inside Higher Ed, telling them in an email that “these expenditures are very transparent.” He also confirmed that the bulk of the $51 million dollars were associated with the rollout of workforce technology program Workday.
Huron has been contracted to implement and manage Workday software at other universities, including Johns Hopkins and William and Mary.
More investigation, based on a listener tip we received after that story aired, shows that the UW System has spent $121 million on Huron’s consulting services since 2013.
Similarly, UW System has also spent more than $8.5 million on Deloitte, another private professional services company in the same amount of time.
Those numbers come from an online database called OpenBook Wisconsin. Run by the Department of Administration, the website catalogs almost all state government spending on contractors – from state agencies to the legislature to the courts. And, of course, the UW System.
The website was set up in 2013, under a bill signed in 2011 by former Governor Scott Walker. In a statement announcing the website, former DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch called the move an effort to make state government more transparent.
While OpenBook Wisconsin lists reported totals, it doesn’t include contracts themselves. The reported expenses fall into broad categories like “maintenance and repair,” “professional and contractual services,” or “supplies.”
State agencies and the UW System spend a lot of money on private contracts. According to the State of Wisconsin Contractual Services Annual Report, in fiscal year 2023 alone the UW System spent over $240 million on contracts. That’s more than triple the amount the System spent on contracts just 20 years ago.
But the amount the UW System spends on private business consultants is alarming to some employees and higher ed experts who argue those same services could be performed by faculty and staff on campuses.
Jon Shelton is a professor of democracy and justice studies and president of the union for faculty and academic staff at UW-Green Bay. He says spending on consultants is a waste of resources and the UW System could make better use of its own knowledge base.
“You can look at it like, well, we have a Republican legislature that is hostile to what we’re doing. So maybe what we should do is be the absolute best stewards of our resources as we can and figure out how continue to serve our students and make sure the people serving them–teaching and providing resources for them–are retained, and that we don’t lose those people who are actually on the ground every day working with those students,” says Shelton.
The UW’s spending on private contractors like Huron is in stark contrast to budget cuts and the ongoing negotiations for more legislative investment in higher education. Just this year, budget negotiations required significant concessions to the Republican legislature and funding the UW System is expected to become a significant battle in the next legislative session.
In the midst of these challenges, Shelton juxtaposes consultant spending to the continual drip of staff layoffs even this year.
“It’s the 30-40 people at UW Milwaukee who were laid off, tenured faculty, who were told they were laid off. And the Board of Regents upheld this at their August board meeting. AFT Wisconsin we had people from across the System protesting that and saying they shouldn’t do that. And what would those people cost? Certainly way less than what these consultants are charging,” says Shelton.
