When the UW System’s Board of Regents froze hiring on the state’s campuses in March because of significant cuts proposed by legislators, UW-Eau Claire continued its search.

“It turned out to have been the right decision,” said Chancellor Donald Mash in an interview last week.

Despite the state Assembly’s $108 million proposed cut in March, a legislative committee instead approved in early July a $44.2 million cut to the System’s 2001-03 budget.

The level of reduction – about $1.5 million this school year at Eau Claire- allowed the university to still hire the more than 60 new faculty members it had sought during the Regents’ hiring freeze.

Over the past year, the university also has upgraded more than 40 classrooms, three lecture halls and four general-purpose computer labs, Mash said.

“They didn’t just stop,” Mash said of the campus projects. “We’ve been very careful to keep some things moving.”

The fund-raising campaign and increased student differential tuition “are two ways that we are going to be able to buffer this fiscal down turn,” Mash said.

The reductions to the System were a part of the Legislature’s months-long task of resolving the state’s $1.1 billion budget deficit, which was resolved largely by almost $829 million in tobacco settlement funds.

University officials said there should be no short-term indications of a reduction on campus.

One exception is the McIntyre Library, which no longer is open at all hours. Due to budget cuts made last school year, the library now operates from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m.

Vice Chancellor Andy Soll said about two-thirds of $1.5 million in reductions to the campus are from funds otherwise used for the Chippewa Valley Initiative, which was a plan to expand programs for the Management Information Systems and Computer Science departments.

The budget cuts mainly mean the campus will have to slow down its upgrading of technology, Soll said.

During the budget settling this summer, legislators also set an 8 percent tuition cap for all UW campuses for this school year, which is about a $120 per semester increase. The Legislature guaranteed state financial aid would increase similarly with any raise in college tuition, as well.