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SSFC holds budget hearing for self, SJ

The University of Wisconsin Student Service Finance Committee held fiscal budget hearings for the Associated Students of Madison Student Judiciary and for itself Monday.

Student Judiciary Chief Justice Nick Fox presented the judiciary's budget — which was based on past expenditures — to the committee.

"We looked at our expenditures for '04-05 and what SSFC gave us for '05-06 and based on that, we made our request," Fox said.

In comparison to this year's budget, the judiciary decreased funds for election workers due to the number of hours the workers put in during election time.

"The poll workers primarily work the week before and during election week," Fox said. "Beyond that, they have minimal capacity."

Fox also explained the budget requested stipends for the associate justices that would provide an incentive for the justices to stay on court.

"An incentive would keep them around," he said. "A loss of one or two of these people would significantly impact the work SJ does."

The ASM Student Judiciary also added money to the proposed budget for programming funds.

"In the past, we've usually had to transfer the money from advertising to here," Fox said.

He added the money for programming would be used for non-newspaper advertising to increase voter turnout and election promotional items.

SSFC committee members raised questions about justifications for stipends for the associate justices.

"Is the work that they do above and beyond ASM or SSFC members?" representative Kellie Sanders asked.

Fox said the associate justices were essential to the efficiency of the Student Judiciary's work.

"They do so much work for the judiciary as far as the duties that they do and the power we delegate to them," he said.

Representative Adam Schlicht said that SSFC members themselves were not paid for the numerous hours they work.

"SSFC chooses not to include a stipend," Fox answered. "The outside research [justices] do, elevates [the position] beyond a member of ASM or SSFC."

He also said based on his experience, paid officers are more likely to do more work because they depend on receiving a salary.

SSFC member Catherine Quinn asked about the need for paid workers during student elections.

"Their duties include working remote election sites for five or six hours," he said. "And it's difficult for the chair and the justices to enforce election violations [at every place]."

SSFC Chair Rachelle Stone stepped down momentarily from her duties as chair to present the SSFC budget to the committee, making budget proposals in reference to previous expenditures.

The SSFC overall proposed budget is a $3,200 decrease from the committee's budget last year, Stone said.

The budget proposes a decrease in funds from last year to fund stipends for the committee chair, vice-chair and secretary.

"I felt as chair, we couldn't increase the stipends to be fiscally responsible," she said. "I'll leave it up to the 13th session."

After the meeting, Stone said when asking questions, the committee members did not consider the Student Judiciary oversight of the SSFC.

"I think committee members took it as a normal budget," she said. "They really weren't looking at the relationship that we have to have with SJ."

The committee will debate and decide the budgets for these groups at their next meeting on Thursday.