I think there are other considerations to be made with respect to the UWSystem and it should not be counted in the total. Many faculty and staff are partially or totally paid for by external grants and overhead charges associated with those grants (also true for some state agency funding). The UWSystem is just a different kind of entity. None the less the article makes for an interesting read in which the name of the game seems to be how to pick your favorite denominator but do not bother to distinguish how things actually work
From the source -
Pocan claimed in a blog post that salaries and benefits for state employees comprise 8.5 percent of the state budget. He did not provide evidence for the figure. In a footnote, Pocan acknowledged that two huge state operations -- the university system and corrections -- were not included, and that if they were, the figure is about 17 percent.
The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance agreed with the 17 percent, while the state budget office argued that the figure is 60 percent. Experts said the two figures are different ways to express what employees cost. But everyone agreed that Pocan’s 8.5 percent -- the main number he used, which was repeated elsewhere -- is not accurate.
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