The Associated Students of Madison Student Service Finance Committee has been meeting twice a week for the past month, holding eligibility hearings for all student organizations hoping to gain funding through General Student Services Funds.

So far, a few groups have been approved, while a handful have also been denied. The most controversial of those denied is the Campus Women’s Center.

The original application and following supplements

For a student organization to gain funding through the university, it must meet all of the 19 requirements set forth by SSFC.

When CWC presented their case for funding before SSFC Sept. 17, all committee members agreed the organization met all the requirements, except one.

For a student organization to be considered for funding, it must provide a direct service to UW students and that service must be the primary focus of that group, with time spent on those services adding up to at least 51 percent of the group’s focus.

The major direct services CWC claimed to provide are: Kids Night Out, Kids Time, resource advising, Condom Crawl, Speaker’s Bureau and support groups. In their eligibility application, CWC broke down their time spent on these direct services in a vague way.

In the first eligibility application submitted by former SSFC member and CWC Finance Coordinator Zorian Lasowsky, the group broke down its time spent on direct services as requiring “almost all” or “at least half” of the coordinators’ time, adding up all the time spent on direct services to “roughly two-thirds of all the time spent by the CWC.”

When asked for exact percentages, CWC sent SSFC members supplemental information showing each direct service required half of its respective coordinator’s time, amounting to 33 percent of total time spent directly on direct services. This, added to time spent by the finance, publicity, new media, programming and volunteer coordinator on direct services — which amounted to about 28 percent — makes the second estimate of total time spent on direct services about 61 percent.

However, after submitting this supplemental information, Lasowsky reported back to SSFC that, upon further review, Kids Night Out and Kids Time did not constitute as direct services.

Those two programs, according to Lasowsky, amounted to 11 percent of the group’s time spent on direct services, since the services consume the entirety of one of the nine coordinator’s — the family resources coordinator — time.

“When they presented the over 60 percent number, they presented two services that by SSFC definition are not considered direct services,” SSFC Chair Brandon Williams said. “They came back and presented to us again with reconciled numbers which put it under that threshold.”

SSFC members also did their own calculations as to how much of the group’s staff’s time was spent on direct services.

Rep. Carl Fergus and Rep. Matt Manes used last year’s reported staff hours and the budget spreadsheets to determine exactly how much time was spent on direct services and the proportion of that to their total time spent working for CWC, according to Williams.

Williams said that based on their calculations, time spent by CWC on direct services only constituted 40 to 45 percent of their time.

SSFC denies CWC funding

With these two calculations, both amounting to less than the required 51 percent, SSFC determined on Sept. 21 that CWC did not meet the threshold required to be approved for funding in a 0-4-4 vote. The four committee members who abstained included Rep. April Kigeya, who said she did so because, while the documents said CWC did not meet the over 50 percent requirement, she took the supplemental documents to mean they would.

“CWC came to SSFC the meeting after their eligibility hearing and provided us with a document entitled ‘Correction about the CWC’s direct services.’ … I interpreted their explanation to mean just that:that they would spend more than the required 50 plus 1 percent on direct services,” Kigeya said. “I abstained based on my interpretation of their breakdown and explanation of time spent on direct services.”

At the Sept. 24 meeting of the SSFC, CWC members came before the committee in an open forum with another set of numbers, asking committee members to motion to reconsider their funding decision.

According to Lasowsky, the 61 percent was not meant to be used for SSFC members when considering the group’s eligibility, but was an attempt to make things more transparent after Fergus’ first request for clarification on their eligibility application.

Lasowsky tried to further clarify the information by providing a third set of numbers before the SSFC.

“Upon greater examination by CWC, we realized that coordinators were doing a lot of things not itemized in [the 61 percent] estimate,” Lasowsky said. “That’s why we provided the last estimate which has actual numbers instead of fractions.”

Lasowsky claimed SSFC members took some of the numbers found on their initial clarification out of context, emphasizing certain points over others while trying to make their own arguments. The new numbers, which showed the group’s direct services as representing 58.5 percent of the group’s time, were, according to Lasowsky the based on the same estimates as all the other ones, just clearer with certain items being emphasized more.

Despite the new numbers, SSFC declined to raise a motion to reconsider.

CWC looks to fight back

CWC is currently looking to pursue other avenues to fight the funding decision.

While there is an appeal process that could be brought through the SSFC, CWC missed the deadline of Sept. 24. Therefore, they are appearing before SSFC tomorrow to raise their complaints about being denied funding, saying procedural due process was violated.

Lasowsky said not only did SSFC members take the numbers out of context, but when there was clear confusion on the floor, including many audible “I’m confused” statements on the record, members did not take the proper steps to ask questions and clear up any confusion surrounding the numbers.

Williams said while he has yet to see the new numbers, the group can come before SSFC tomorrow when they will hear their complaint and issue a statement to be used should CWC choose to appeal the decision through ASM’s Student Judiciary Committee.

He added the complaint of SSFC violating procedural due process is unfounded.

“I believe … that they felt that committee members did not take into account all supplemental information,” Williams said. “However, there is no bylaw or standing rule that committee members have to take what they see in supplemental fact into account when making the decision.”

According to Lasowsky, CWC has not yet filed an appeal with the Student Judiciary Committee, though they are very likely to do so.

“SSFC is completely legitimate in denying eligibility because of the documents submitted — there were a lot of them and they were confusing. We do have over 50 percent of time spent on direct services. … On our side, we have things that are our fault — we should have made attempts to make it more understandable — but SSFC didn’t take proper course of action to remedy confusion,” Lasowsky said.

The News Explainer column will run every Wednesday, answering the questions and concerns of the student body. If you have any questions regarding a story you would like to see further explained in this column, e-mail [email protected].