The Student Services Finance Committee approved budgets Monday for Greater University Tutoring Service and Promoting Awareness and Victim Empowerment after much debate over each organization’s line-by-line proposals.
GUTS received $143,243.42 for its budget. SSFC voted against the tutor’s food and beverage proposed budget while maintaining the proposed budget for water bottles for the tutors.
“I think it’s pretty minimal — a fund for appreciation for giving in total thousands of hours throughout the year, and that furthermore it creates a climate where people would want to return and volunteer,” said SSFC Secretary and Badger Herald columnist Kyle Szarzynski about the proposed water bottle fund.
SSFC decreased the student assistant proposed salary of $9.25 down 6 cents to $9.19. They also decreased the same amount proposed for the McBurney Disability Resource student assistants, saying these assistants do not require extra skills and therefore do not need to have an increased salary.
PAVE received $69,209.42 for its budget. SSFC voted to strike $234 from its advertising budget, $14 from transportation and $28 from student per diem to bring down the cost on student meals paid for by the organization during hosted events. SSFC cut $104 from supplies and furniture items for PAVE. They did move to keep $1000 for speaker honoraria fees.
Each organization presented its budget proposal to SSFC in a meeting last week and explained in-depth the proposal of their programs. SSFC asked questions to verify the reasoning behind what the money would be used for in each situation.
SSFC maintained the importance for PAVE to keep its honoraria funding in speaker fees.
“Speakers are important to this group, and we heard from [PAVE] saying it’s been harder for them to find speakers in the past, and I think we should give this consideration,” SSFC Representative Darren Knox said.
SSFC is scheduled to go over the proposed budgets for the Student Leadership Program and Adventure Learning Program in their meeting on Thursday, Oct. 16. The two groups presented to the forum Monday and will be present for the final decision this week.
