Student Services Finance Committee members held a lengthy debate Thursday night to pass two student organizations’ 2005-06 budgets with minor cuts and listen to two other group’s presentations.

MCSC’s 2005-06 budget was re-opened Thursday night after an error was brought to the attention of SSFC members regarding the allocation of salaries for MCSC staff. SSFC members spent a large amount of time during the meeting debating the budget of the MCSC, eventually setting the final 2005-06 budget at $417,135. In a September SSFC meeting, committee members had allocated the MultiCultural Student Coalition’s 2005-06 budget at $423,322.

The budget was finalized after a $1,152 cut was made to MCSC salaries, and several other cuts were made to food for special MCSC events.

SSFC members spent time debating reductions to MCSC’s fall and spring barbecue events. Several SSFC members felt the importance of this event outweighed the large expense of $5,000 for each barbecue.

“There is no way I am going to support cutting the whole event,” SSFC member Kevin Otten said, arguing the events allowed students to have a “safe space to meet people with similar identities.”

SSFC member Barbara Kiernoziak agreed with Otten, because she said she felt the events gave students a place where they could go where they would not endure any discrimination, which they may encounter at other Madison locations.

The MCSC barbecue events eventually received a total cut of $1,368.

MCSC staff member Bradinn French was disappointed with the cuts, but he said he felt “satisfied [SSFC members] talked about it and didn’t just make arbitrary cuts.”

SSFC members also debated the 2005-06 budget of the Tenant Resource Center. TRC had been allocated a 2004-05 budget of $59,984 and requested an increase of $1,199 in its 2005-06 budget, bringing the TRC requested total to $61,183.

SSFC members made a $7,980 cut to TRC’s campus coordinator positions. The majority of SSFC members felt this cut was justified partly because TRC had been the only student organization to request paid staff for a total of 52 weeks.

After cuts to TRC’s paid positions were debated and passed, the TRC 2005-06 budget was finalized at $53,202.

Janell Wise, chair of the committee, temporarily stepped down from her position in order to present to other members the requested 2005-06 SSFC budget. SSFC requested $107,600, which was a $6,890 increase from the 2004-05 budget of $100,710.

Wise also discussed the possibilities of SSFC committee members receiving salaries like many other organizations that do comparable work.

However, Wise did not include this in the requested budget and decided to leave it up to the committee members to debate at Monday’s meeting because she said she felt “it looks like we’re putting money in our own pockets, and I don’t want to convey that to the student body.”

SSFC members also listened to a presentation from Student Judiciary members requesting a 1.7 percent increase in their 2004-05 budget of $41,860, totaling $42,800.

SJ members felt this increase was necessary in order to serve their needs for advertising and staff members’ salaries to allow SJ to effectively run elections.

The SJ and SSFC budgets will be debated on Monday.