There weren’t any protests. There weren’t any heated debates. There was no one in the hallway promising vengeance, and everyone showed up. All in all, it was nothing like the most recent Student Services Finance Committee meetings.
In unanimous decisions, the committee approved the budget requests of Adventure Learning Programs Service and Greater University Tutorial Service.
SSFC questioned the budget submissions of two other groups, the Rape Crisis Center and the Legal Information Center, and will vote on both Wednesday.
The biggest debate of the night concerned the budget request for ALPS, which asked the committee for about $54,000 in its budget application. SSFC Rep. Tom Clark questioned whether ALPS’s stated need for a student service specialist was necessary.
“I’m wondering whether or not this position is really cost-effective,” he said.
Clark added that a better idea might be the addition of another student coordinator rather than a specialist.
“I’m unclear to how he thinks a coordinator could replace a specialist,” committee vice-chair Jason Davis responded. “A coordinator doesn’t have the ability, nor the experience.”
After the interruption of a late arrival by Rep. Ryan Nichols, who said he was advised by Chair Roman Patzner that it would be “appropriate” for him not to vote, the committee approved the amended budget with no objections.
Patzner said later that many members felt it would be improper for Nichols to vote since he had not been present for discussion on the item, but he added that any member has the right to vote as soon as he or she is present.
The GUTS Tutorial Group’s budget was also passed with little debate.
Citing statistics like “27 percent of UW students have reported non-consensual sex,” and claiming to be “the oldest rape crisis center in the state,” representatives from the Rape Crisis Center also received relatively few questions.
Representatives of the Legal Info Center also escaped close scrutiny. They attributed the increase in their budget request to the hiring of an office manager, since the law-student volunteers felt they were too busy to cover the position.
Both groups’ budget requests will be decided at next Wednesday’s SSFC meeting.
Horn talks back
After the meeting, Rep. Drew Horn spoke about the alleged boycott of last week’s SSFC and ASM Judiciary meetings.
“We’d already gotten excused from it, ” Horn explained. “We just couldn’t make it to the meeting.”
When questioned about Davis’ allegations that the missing SSFC members were spotted in the building prior to the meeting in question, Horn admitted, “We met downstairs in the basement to discuss a few things. But there wasn’t any sort of plan.”
Horn also commented on concerns of the Badger Party that the left-leaning members of the ASM were trying to pack the judiciary with sympathizers in the wake of the recent Southworth and MEChA decisions.
“There’s been a lot of accusations against us (the Badger Party), but the left side has an agenda of their own,” Horn said.
Horn stressed that he missed last week’s meeting because he “had a lot of things going on.” However, he affirmed that some members may not have wanted a quorum because they didn’t want the meetings to occur.
“I heard rumors that certain other representatives of SSFC were going to take advantage of Baumgardner’s removal to push their own agenda,” Horn said, referring to the removal of SSFC member Mark Baumgardner last week. “They didn’t want them to achieve their agenda.”
