Despite addressing a wide range of topics from campus safety to the internal budget and out-of-state tuition, members of University of Wisconsin’s student government made few decisions at their Wednesday meeting.

ASM Internal Budget

Associated Students of Madison’s Student Council held a listening session in which members were able to voice opinions on what they thought should be considered in ASM’s internal budget. David Gardner, ASM chair, asked representatives to hold debate until the draft for the internal budget was created, leading to a disarray of ideas.

Rep. Jamie Wheeler asked to review the budget item by item at a future meeting to determine if the money was being used efficiently.

ASM’s current internal budget total is $1,241,962.36. It includes funding for advertising, registered student organization grants, representatives stipends and staff salaries.

ASM members spent over an hour discussing the possibility of a “Green Fund,” which was proposed by the grassroots Sustainability Committee. Chair Will Mulhern said it would fund student grants for projects that would affect environmental change on campus. Mulhern pointed out that several other UW schools already have Green Funds, but controversy arose when Mulhern said he wanted students to fund them.

Wheeler along with other representatives questioned why students should fund the grant when faculty and other groups around campus have a large amount of money designated for sustainability efforts.

Mulhern said he is afraid that if students receive funding from other places around campus, such as the faculty, those groups may want to add their input and feedback into the grants.

Multiple ASM representatives advocated for allotting money in the internal budget for new positions within their committees.

Shared Governance Chair Sarah Neibart reminded ASM members that the internal budget was not an open fund and said representatives should be fiscally responsible and keep in mind that higher education is not accessible to everyone.

Out-of-state tuition 

Neibart also brought up the possibility of creating a shared governance committee to discuss out of state tuition. Chancellor Rebecca Blank has made her intentions to raise out of state tuition clear through multiple addresses to the UW community.

Neibart said she wants the group to be a student space that will have credibility and legitimacy in the chancellor’s office. Neibart said she would also like the committee to include some faculty and staff members to show the issue is important to all members of the UW community.

Neibart also said she wants to prompt a broader discussion about diversity, equity and different factors that go into tuition.

Right now there is no key way to include students in the discussion on out of state tuition and a committee would be very beneficial, Gardner said.

Gardner said he wants to ensure students are engaged and included in the conversations regarding an increase in out of state tuition. ASM’s role is to fight for affordability and they have been been very clear that they want to work with the chancellor on this issue, he said.

“The number one priority is providing student input,” Gardner said.

Campus safety 

Gardner also announced that ASM will be partnering with College Library to create a survey regarding campus safety.

ASM is currently exploring options regarding the 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. time period where there is no Safe Walk or bus service, Gardner said. In the next few weeks, students studying at College Library will be able to fill out paper surveys to help ASM find data regarding where students are going and at what times at night, he said.

The compilation of the data will determine whether a need for a late-night shuttle service exists and what it will look like, Gardner said.

Additionally at the meeting, ASM passed a Student Activity Center Governing Board bylaw alteration and a resolution supporting financial literacy on campus and approved a nominations appointment to Student Judiciary.

Correction: Statements made by Rep. Jamie Wheeler were misattributed to Rep. Becca Buell in the print edition of this story. Buell was not in attendance at the meeting. The online edition has been updated to reflect the change. We regret the error.