Youthful inexperience came under fire Monday night as the Student Services Finance Committee debated the $419,177 budget request from the MultiCultural Student Coalition.
Debate lasted until nearly midnight, and the committee eventually adjourned before reaching a decision about whether to cut thousands of dollars from the MCSC request.
The night was not totally without results, however, as SSFC did approve $40,018 for the student veteran relations group Vets for Vets and also heard a proposal for Engineering Without Borders.
SSFC, the financial branch of the Associated Students of Madison, appropriates funding to University of Wisconsin Registered Student Organizations from student-segregated fees tacked on to tuition costs.
MCSC executive staff member Katrina Flores was present Monday to apologize for what she said was a poorly presented budget by an inexperienced rookie staff.
"Our students are new, and we were not able to guide them as much as we should have," she said. "It was a learning experience, a teachable moment so [that] next year they can be prepared."
Flores submitted a priority list with corrected funding estimates as well as opening the door for SSFC to cut what they felt necessary based on the inaccurate initial proposal.
Some members expressed frustration with a budget that SSFC Chair Zach Frey said "just doesn't make sense."
"I wish the group would have worked more with older members to refine the budget and make sure they get all the errors out while still training the younger members," SSFC representative Alex Gallagher added.
SSFC amended the budget because of concern over its travel items as well as other hazy lines in the initial proposal. Members debated funding for MCSC trips, but eventually decided to cut the expense after classifying the trips as "gifts" that cannot be funded with student-segregated fees.
According to MCSC member Bradinn French, the programs the group sponsors fit into UW's decade-long Plan 2008 project to promote diversity.
"As it becomes more important, the urgency is there for everybody, and we're really trying to step up our game as much as possible," he said. "We've been reaching out to a lot of people and want to reach out to even more."
Engineering Without Borders, meanwhile, also presented a budget proposal, theirs amounting to a considerably less $122,890. The 80 to 100 member group works on developing communities abroad in Asia, Africa, South America and Central America to provide sanitary engineering solutions.
Rwanda Project manager Tim Miller said the group focuses on actively impacting the thousands of those in need in underdeveloped nations and then spreads awareness back at UW.
SSFC addressed several of their concerns with the group's budget such as their impact upon the UW students once workers return from service trips to their project areas.
The committee also addressed concern over how the group could account for paying staffers who work on their own time and without supervision, due to a lack of office space.
"They're not going to try to take advantage of the system — they're going to work what they say they are going to work," Engineers Without Borders President Jeff Schneider said. "I think honesty is the biggest thing."
