News

SSFC struggles to set funding for groups

The University of Wisconsin Student Services Finance Committee struggled with the Multicultural Student Coalition and Engineers without Borders budget decisions Thursday night.

MCSC is a student organization that promotes education in diversity issues at UW to improve campus climate.

Representatives of MCSC presented a budget proposal Monday, requesting $419,177 for the 2007-08 school year. The meeting Monday ended shortly before midnight and well before a decision was reached about whether to grant the budget request in full.

SSFC spent a large portion of Thursday's meeting debating specific budget line-items. In its budget, MCSC requested that several events, such as the Latino Ball and Hmong Culture Night, be funded — but SSFC eventually decided to reject much of the funding for those events.

The debate ended with the approval of a $379,090.30 budget with a vote of eight to one.

MCSC Administrative Staff Member Amanda Yohannes said she was "very happy with the budget decision."

After hours of debate at two separate meetings, SSFC member Sree Atluru had little to say.

"I think we did a fairly good job." Atluru said.

The fate of a budget request from Engineers without Borders was also deliberated Thursday. Engineers without Borders presented a budget proposal totaling $122,890 during Monday's SSFC meeting.

Engineers without Borders is a national group with an active chapter at UW. The group's mission is to improve the quality of life in disadvantaged communities around the world by providing economically and environmentally responsible engineering solutions.

Engineers without Borders' main budget request was funding for the group's travel expenses since most of their other large expenses are funded through grants and fundraising.

Peter Bosscher, a professor for the UW College of Engineering, spoke to the necessity of travel in the execution of the group's services.

"Without travel — we've designed, we've planned, but we have not delivered," Bosscher said.

As of press time SSFC had not made a decision on the Engineers without Borders budget.