OPINION & EDITORIAL
Render unto MCSC
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Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
- A security fee-for-all (December 11, 2007)
- Farewell, Chancellor (December 10, 2007)
- $$FC (December 6, 2007)
- In a bind (December 5, 2007)
- Entitlement Town (December 4, 2007)
Related Stories:
- MCSC, grow up! (November 5, 2003)
- Zero-sum game (November 29, 2005)
- The saga continues (November 10, 2003)
- MCSC needs to be more realistic (November 3, 2003)
- Limiting the spending spree (November 11, 2001)
by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
In a perfect world, groups wishing to receive funding submit a budget to the Student Services Finance Committee. The SSFC then carefully pores over the budget and removes unnecessary expenditures.
Unfortunately, this world is as far from reality as any fairy tale.
Once again, the most egregious example of fiscal responsibility gone awry comes from the Multicultural Student Coalition. The MCSC's budget request for the 2005-06 school year shows a complete disregard for students’ wallets.
The budget request allocates nearly $20,000 for members of the MCSC to attend conferences stretching from California to New York. The cost includes airfare, hotel rooms, and registration fees — all paid by segregated fees.
The most glaring example of reckless seg fee abuse comes with the MCSC's desire to charge a nearly $3,000 trip to a five-day conference at the Midwest Academy in Chicago.
The first on a long list of complaints comes as the MCSC deemed it necessary to fly from Madison to Chicago, incurring a $500 airfare bill. If members of the MCSC were in any way committed to saving student money, they would have realized a pair of round-trip bus tickets from Madison to O'Hare Airport cost a mere $70 with a student discount. Instead, members of the MCSC decided it was in the University's best interest for students to pay hundreds of dollars so two MCSC students can fly 260 miles round trip.
MCSC also claims the registration fee for the program is over $1,000 per person. In an attempt to make such a cost appear reasonable, the budget says room and board are included in the registration fee.
However, the Midwest Academy's website states the registration fee for a private room is only $860, and $780 for a double room. Assuming the MCSC threw fiscal responsibility to the wind and splurged on a private room, there still remains roughly $150 that defies all conventional logic.
The MCSC then had the audacity to request an additional $350 for a hotel room, despite the fact they already charged students for the rooms provided by the program. Their reasoning again is beyond comprehension.
Left unchecked, the MCSC budget request shows as little restraint as a 14-year-old with Daddy's credit card who just sauntered into Tiffany's. However, to their credit, the Student Services Finance Committee managed to trim around $700 from the trip to Chicago and denied the MCSC request to attend two other conferences throughout the year.
While this appears to show the SSFC is not simply a rubber stamp eagerly capitulating to all MCSC requests, seven other MCSC field trips were unequivocally passed by the SSFC without cutting a single cent. Of the roughly $20,000 the MCSC requested for such excursions over the school year, the SSFC only managed to cut around $4,000.
We would like to see more fiscal responsibility on behalf of the MCSC and for the SSFC to find a way to effectively trim the fat. Until that happens, the state legislature will not be the only entity responsible for the ever-growing financial burden that plagues all UW students.
Anonymous (September 28, 2005 @ 8:06am):
MCSC is completely useless; I want my money back.
Anonymous (September 28, 2005 @ 9:52am):
One would think that an organization led by Josh "Hunger Strike" Healey would practice what they preach. Sadly, it appears that is too much to ask.
Anonymous (September 28, 2005 @ 4:19pm):
If you're not happy with the level of fiscal responsibility then run for office or join MCSC.
Anonymous (September 28, 2005 @ 5:02pm):
At least if he's on a hunger strike the SSFC can cut some food costs out of their budget.
Anonymous (September 28, 2005 @ 6:43pm):
Go get 'em.
Anonymous (September 28, 2005 @ 9:31pm):
Um, yeah. I work for MCSC and I can tell you that the majority of this stuff is either a) not factual at all or b) very manipulative.
It's not even true that we had(have) a $20,000 conference budget in the first place. Our conference budget is $15,000, and what we don't use of it is given back, not spent on anything else. These conferences are not "field trips" as the editorial board so elegantly put, they are leadership conferences that our students bring back to campus and put on programs and events with. Ever been to a sexual assault program from MCSC? Yeah, that's because we have to learn what we're doing first. Ever been to a dialogue on race in the media? Yeah, that's because we have to learn what we're doing first. These aren't free for alls where MCSC employees can run about the town, these are just like taking classes that last all day and through most of the night. And after taking these classes that last all day and through most of the night, these employees are not only expected, but required to convert what they learned from these conferences into programs that will benefit the entire campus.
What has also not been clarified in this poorly put together piece is the SSFC and GGSF systems and how they work. We have to request our budget more than 1 full year in advance of it going into effect. That means that in the summer or 2004, the locations for these conferences had not been specified by even the actual people holding the conference. We don't know if a conference is going to be in Chicago or if it's going to be in Idaho. I can assure you that the individuals attending this conference in Chicago will not be flying--thats idiotic. We send people driving as far as Chicago, Iowa, and even Washington DC. The conference specifics such as hotel and conference fees are NOT AVAILABLE over a year in advance, usually because the conference holders are too busy HAVING THEIR CONFERENCE FOR THAT YEAR. We only know that they will be having an annual conference, and we can only plan our budget based around previous figures. Of course, it would be against the Badger Herald editorial boards' poor journalism standards to even relate this information to students, so I wouldn't expect that they would provide anyone with all information, or even factual information. If you can find all this information on conferences over a year in advance, please come to our staff so you can help us prepare our budget for 2007-2008. We already had to do our budget for 06-07, but I'm sure the Herald Editorial Board will know exactly what their expenditures will look like for next year. Poor journalism will help you with those types of lies.
Hopefully we will be able to clear this mess that the Herald made up, and we may possible file some kind of complaint for this reckless and obviously one-sided journalism by the boards own members. For shame, Herald. I'd expect this from the Beacon, but you're supposed to be a credible news source.
