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Madison - Gov. Scott Walker's administration laid out Friday where it would find more money this year to balance the state budget, including an additional $46.1 million cut in funds for the University of Wisconsin System.

The UW would take the largest hit in the round of $123.3 million in cuts, written into the budget in June by the Republican governor and lawmakers but not spelled out in detail at that time. The task of divvying up the cuts was left instead to the Walker administration, which said in October that the biggest part - more than one-third - will have to be shouldered by the UW System.

Cuts to other state programs include:

$9.4 million to the state prison system and the Department of Corrections, including nearly $900,000 in cuts for programs dealing with sex offenders and $3.9 million in aid that go to counties to help cover the costs of handling juvenile offenders.

$18.6 million to the state Department of Health Services, which would come out of federal bonus money that the state received for covering uninsured children.

$8.3 million to the Department of Children and Families, which runs programs such as the Wisconsin Shares child-care subsidy program for low-income families.

$2.1 million to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., the replacement for the state Department of Commerce that is charged with boosting the state's struggling economy.

Even after these cuts, the administration will have to do another round of $51.1 million next year.

"These (cuts) present challenges and opportunities for every agency. Under Governor Walker's leadership, we took on those challenges to lay the groundwork for a sound fiscal future for our state," Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch said in a statement.

Until now, no details have been released on how state agencies like the universities will meet those cuts and how services and workers might be affected. The administration sent some of those details Friday to the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, which will decide in the coming weeks whether to block the changes.

Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester), the co-chairman of Joint Finance, said he wanted to hold a hearing and vote on the proposed cuts in early January. Vos said he wanted to learn more about the effects of the proposed cuts to economic development, sex offender programs and aid to counties for juvenile criminal offenders.

"I want to make sure those programs are not going to have the core services reduced," Vos said.

The Walker administration has already exempted some priorities from this latest round of cuts, including aid to local schools, health programs for the poor, technical colleges, child welfare programs, local prosecutors and financial aid for college students.

The latest cuts to state universities will add to the $250 million already made to the UW System in the two-year budget, at a time when UW institutions have already started the academic year.

Timing questioned

Democrats charged that Walker had sought to bury news of the cuts by releasing them just before Christmas. Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) criticized the additional large cuts to universities.

"Today's budget cuts are again disproportionally targeted at one of the worst places to hit in a difficult economy: our Wisconsin public education system," Barca said in a statement.

In a Dec. 14 letter to Walker's budget director, UW System President Kevin Reilly said the cuts to colleges were the largest in history and would affect the state's economy and its families. He said that universities would have fewer and larger classes; current students would need more time and larger loans to graduate; and future students would find it more difficult to get into UW System schools.

"To put this in another perspective, $46 million is equivalent to a full year's worth of state support for 11,360 UW students or 511 faculty and staff positions," Reilly wrote.

An email went out to UW Colleges and UW Extension employees on Wednesday asking them to use their free time to contact their lawmakers and urge them to oppose the cuts.

"President Reilly has asked all UW System employees to call or email your legislator and ask them in your own words to help the UW System in any way they can," reads the email from Rosemary Potter, governmental relations director for Colleges and Extension.

UW System spokesman David Giroux said that Potter's email was "appropriate" but that not all UW System employees received such an email.

He said that the UW System was more focused on having chancellors and business leaders from around the state reach out to lawmakers.

Walker and Republican lawmakers closed a $3 billion budget hole over the 2011-'13 state budget by relying on spending cuts rather than tax increases, with the largest cuts directed at schools and local governments. Spelling out these latest unspecified cuts is one of the final pieces for balancing the budget.

Besides the remaining $51 million in cuts expected for next year, it's possible that even larger spending decreases might still have to be made in the state budget next year if tax revenues falter.

The two-year state budget has only thin cash reserves projected - they're equal to only about one-half of 1% of the state's yearly spending from its main account.

Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.