The Legal Information Center received both eligibility and a funding allocation of $15,831 for the next fiscal year as a result of a Student Services Finance Committee meeting Monday night.

The meeting started with the eligibility hearing for the LIC, a student organization that helped approximately 2,400 people with legal information last year. SSFC members raised the point that students made up a minority of the assisted; about 1,400 of those seeking help were not University of Wisconsin students.

Representatives of LIC said they do “not ever turn students away … students are always our No. 1 priority,” that the added burden of non-UW-affiliated people is not costly, and that the help provided for non-UW-affiliated people is invaluable experience for the student volunteers. Another concern raised for eligibility was that resources for legal information are available elsewhere, although they might be costly to students.

Eligibility was granted in a 4-3-1 decision, with SSFC chair Aaron Werner stepping down to speak, in part, on LIC’s purpose within the UW community and eventually staying on to vote in favor of their eligibility.

SSFC then cut LIC’s newly eligible budget by $1,636 of the original request of $17,467. SSFC cut $780 from the computer line item, deciding the LIC did not need a new computer to complete its day-to-day functions, but left $120 in order to purchase software for designing flyers or posters, and to ensure the office has the appropriate applications needed for general clerical needs.

The student-salary line item also received a cut, shrinking the hourly salary of the three co-directors of LIC from $10.50 to $9.50. This new hourly wage is uniquely higher than other directors’ wages in other organizations, since SSFC requires the directors to have special academic qualifications in order to occupy the position. In this particular case, all co-directors are law students.

SSFC also moved money from advertising to printing and copying, leaving no money in advertising. SSFC sought this compromise because a professional-looking poster or continual flyers around campus would benefit the organization more than a few advertisements in student newspapers.

LIC received more than $16,000 in its last budget hearing, and co-director Tom Keehan said he would not appeal the decision, even though the decrease in segregated fees was substantial.

“We’re not happy, but we’ll take it,” said Keehan, a UW law student. Though some SSFC members disapproved of Werner stepping down from his post in the middle of eligibility debates, Keehan thought otherwise.

“I think that Chair Werner did a good job,” Keehan said.

Werner faced an appeal from LIC earlier this month stemming from a claim he did not give LIC fair warning on application due dates. Before the meeting, Werner did claim he would be viewpoint-neutral, which LIC representatives had also thought.

SSFC member Ben Hawke said he was glad to be done with SSFC affairs after the more than four-hour meeting for what should be the last gathering of the semester.