Behind schedule for budget approvals this semester, the Student Services Finance Committee approved the 2006-07 budget for the Multicultural Student Coalition early Tuesday morning.

The only student organization addressed during the meeting, MCSC was able to maintain a majority of its major expenses. However, SSFC did cut funding from various line items that representatives considered unnecessary or redundant — including member salaries, a portion of spring internship positions and various events such as a spring barbeque and an "open mic night" — bringing the final budget to roughly $376,696 from the proposed $445,000.

"Overall, I personally felt like the cuts were fair," MCSC Executive Staff Member Bradinn French said. "I certainly didn't necessarily agree with them, but I was comfortable with the amount of discussion and dialogue that went into them."

And while the committee spent well-deserved time deliberating various cuts to the MCSC budget, the organizations left over from Monday night's agenda will have to wait until Thursday or for a Friday "emergency meeting" to have their budgets approved.

The committee was scheduled to finish the decisions last week Thursday, but due to the great amount of time taken with various groups, SSFC was forced to continue the process this week to approve budgets for remaining student organizations. Five budgets still need to be tackled before the end of the week and committee members expect to further extend the process until Friday to meet their Monday deadline.

"We're kind of in a crunch right now," SSFC Vice Chair Eric Saar said. "[But] between Thursday and Friday, we'll get them done."

While some critics both inside and outside of SSFC tend to carp about the process for its demanding and often lengthy procedures, representatives said that this semester, committee members spent more time debating the appropriateness of various budget cuts and decisions.

"I think it's … mainly because the committee is taking more time to think about the budgets," Saar said of the extended deadline. "Overall, I think it's the level of discussion [and the] level of thought that went into the budgets this year."

Saar said the committee finished the budget process on time last year, but the amount of time the process expended this year speaks to representatives' respect for the process.

Yet committee members have become wary of the lengthy process, Saar said.

"There is some frustration, but … I think the light's at the end of the tunnel," he said. "I think people are realizing maybe we've been taking a little bit too much time on these decisions."

Behind schedule or not, SSFC representative Zach Frey said the committee spent careful time deciding on other major student organization budgets and it was only appropriate to allocate the same attention to MCSC.

"They're one of the biggest budgets we've seen all year," he said. "I would be alarmed if we didn't go into as much discussion and still made the cuts that we did — that would show lack of thought."

Frey added other procedural factors, such as the contentious series of hearings held for the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholic Foundation, contributed to the delay.

French added that while he was impressed with the thoroughness of the budget process this year, he was frustrated that SSFC cut funding from the various MCSC programs — bringing the group's 2006-07 budget below this year's — after members expressed the group would like to increase its programming next year.

"We're just going to have to figure out how to deal with what we got," he said. "We do that all the time, so we're going to survive."