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Funding group debates fate
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Also by Stacy Nathan:
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by Stacy Nathan
Friday, September 14, 2007
The Associated Students of Madison Student Services Finance Committee decided the fate of three registered student organizations as they continued budget hearings this week.
Students for Tenant Resource Center, Asian and Pacific American Council and Wunk Sheek gave presentations last Tuesday and found out Thursday night that only two would receive full funding for the next two years.
With a 5-0 vote and one member abstaining, STRC was approved for funding because, according to SSFC members, their group specifically serves students.
Joseph Lindstrom, a member of STRC, said he is excited about the future of the group because not only will STRC be coming to campus, but will also form a student tenant union.
"Both of these together will be able to offer a much more expansive program of advocacy, as well as training tenants to negotiate for better rents and exposing bad landlords, which will create a competitive environment for landlords to offer better properties," Lindstrom said.
The decision for STRC's eligibility was made within minutes, but it was quite the opposite for the other groups.
More than 90 minutes of arduous deliberation later, SSFC concluded the Asian and Pacific American Council were noteligible for funding.
According to SSFC bylaws, organizations applying for funding must have an additional significant component other than event programming and leadership development.
This component refers mainly to services provided to students that cannot be found elsewhere on campus. Without this additional component, any of the 754 registered student organizations could apply for funding, said a SSFC representative during debate.
APAC's standing as an umbrella group for 17 other groups was their significant other component, but SSFC said that in their presentation, APAC did not present sufficient information about their status as an "umbrella group."This led the committee to believe it was not a significant additional component because they did not treat it as such.
APAC’s bid to qualify for GSSFs failed with a split vote — two in favor, two against and two abstaining.
Johnny Ly, the chairman for APAC, said he did not agree with the committee's decision on its eligibility.
"The term 'umbrella,' it's just a word," Ly said. "To determine something based on a word — saying 'umbrella' — that's kind of absurd."
SSFC decided to grant Wunk Sheek eligibility following lengthy deliberations, with a 5-1 vote.
In addition these decisions, SSFC also heard from three other on-campus groups requesting funding.
InterVarsity Graduate Fellowship, the Greater University Tutoring Service and the Adventure Learning Program each made presentations to the committee in hopes they too would receive funding, but SSFC has not yet ruled on these cases.
Anonymous (September 17, 2007 @ 4:49pm):
lol, this was a long time coming.
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