The Associated Students of Madison Student Services Financial Committee voted on changes to their bylaws in a meeting Monday night, as well as approved an alteration to the Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics budget. SSFC also considered plans to appeal Chancellor Rebecca Blank’s decision to ignore the committee’s recommendation on freezing the Memorial Union budget.

Amendments to SSFC Standing Rules and Bylaws

SSFC worked to refine both its standing rules and bylaws for next year, striking some laws and adding clarifications in accordance with new rules on eligibility for the General Student Services Fund.

Associated Students of Madison will vote on the new GSSF eligibility criteria Wednesday. Most of the changes to the bylaws involved replacing the words “direct services” with “core programing,” which is part of the new GSSF eligibility criteria.

SSFC Chair David Vines said the changes to bylaws were also made to remove repetitive language in the laws.  One such rule included removing the requirement for a majority vote in the committee to determine a group as GSSF eligible.

All amendments were accepted and will be sent to Student Council for a final vote.

AHA Budget

SSFC also approved an alteration to Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics’ budget Monday in anticipation of the group’s upcoming trip to the annual Secular Students Alliance this July, taking place in Columbus, Ohio.

The group requested to move money from its line item for airfare into transportation, registration and hotel fees. AHA President Sam Erickson told the committee AHA will be driving to the conference instead of flying. He said this will save AHA money but will requiring some redistributing of the group’s funds.

Erickson said driving will also allow the group to bring more officers on the trip.

Plans to appeal to Chancellor Blank

The committee also discussed its plans to appeal to the Board of Regents concerning Chancellor Rebecca Blank’s overturn of the committee’s decision to freeze the Memorial Union’s budget. SSFC had frozen the budget to prevent a 2.2 percent budget increase, citing concerns about transparency in the budget.

The SSFC will meet again Thursday, April 17th.

[Photo by Jeff Miller/UW Communications]