The Associated Students of Madison Student Services Finance Committee voted Monday to approve the Rape Crisis Center’s proposed budget without amendment and will continue deliberation Wednesday over the proposed budgets of the SAFE program; Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment; and engineering student organization Polygon.
The committee will also address a clerical error discovered Monday in the modifications made to the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholics’ more than $170,000 budget proposal.
The SSFC approved almost $120,000 in budget cuts from the UW Roman Catholics’ proposal and later discovered more than $9,000 in funds that were misrepresented in the committee’s modifications.
After heated debate over whether or not to postpone resolving the issue, the committee decided to address the budget reconsideration Wednesday in the presence of UW Roman Catholics representatives.
“What just happened was the worst [SSFC] fiasco I have seen this semester,” said SSFC finance chair Benjamin Hawke.
SSFC members also addressed the SAFE program’s request for a major increase in program funding. Representatives from SAFE assured the committee that with the increased funding, ASM would play a larger role in the decisions made by the program, which was previously funded solely by UW Transportation Services.
“It’s a tough program to manage,” said director of Transportation Services Lance Lunsway. “We are trying to look at where this is going in the future, making sure students are involved in spending their money.”
Lunsway also said the program will concentrate on expansion in the future, looking to fill the gap between SAFE services’ 3 a.m. closing and the beginning of early-morning transportation services.
The SSFC also heard from a representative from Polygon and several PAVE members about their budget proposals.