Building program reduced

The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee plans to fund two of four buildings proposed at UW–Madison as part of the BioStar initiative.

The finance committee made its choices June 4 while considering recommendations of the State Building Commission for 2001-03. The commission had recommended $1.26 billion worth of building projects, but the Joint Finance Committee voted to reduce that amount by $79.1 million.

The committee also directed the Building Commission to submit a revised list of building projects that reflects this reduction.

The Finance Committee authorized $27 million for the biotechnology center addition to be built in 2001-03 and $100 million for a new microbial sciences building to be designed in 2001-03 with construction planned for 2003-05.

The university would need to come back in a future budget to get funding for the remaining BioStar buildings — $85 million for the biochemistry building addition to be constructed in 2005-07 and $105 million for the interdisciplinary biology building likely to be built in 2009-11.

The committee did not authorize funding for a $20 million meat/muscle science laboratory or a $23.6 million veterinary diagnostic laboratory, both at UW–Madison. Both had been recommended by the Building Commission for construction in the 2003-2005 biennium.

The committee also rejected the Building Commission recommendation to authorize $40 million for UW-System facilities repair and renovation projects in the 2003-2005 biennium. Funding for these projects will have to be requested again two years from now.

Joint Finance Committee members will continue their work on the budget tomorrow with votes on base budget reductions, tobacco settlement securitization and general fund taxes, among other items. The Fiscal Bureau Papers describing these issues are available on the Web.