Associated Students of Madison Chair Tyler Junger presented the ASM internal budget for the 2010-11 academic year to the Students Service Finance Committee Monday night.
The budget, totaling $1,185,436.80, included the creation of an off-campus housing support center, wage increases for financial staff, a proposal for a Creative Works Fund and the creation of the chief of staff and expansion of the assistant press director positions.
“It’s a very complicated budget. It’s very large. This budget sets the direction for next year’s ASM” former SSFC Chair Carl Fergus said.
A new Housing and Tenant Support program was proposed at $50,000. The purpose of the program, Junger said, is to create a contract with a yet undetermined agency on campus to help students with housing issues.
One of the goals of the agency, he said, is to prevent landlords from taking advantage of students who do not know the intricacies of off-campus housing.
Two of the financial staff positions have a proposed salary of $34,662.70, which would be increased and equalized from the former salaries of $31,312 and $30,951.50.
Such an increase, Junger said, is to correct past errors in payment when the staff was not allocated enough money.
The Creative Works Fund would fund student art projects, ranging from software to sculptures. The difference from the projects an art student would create in an art studio or lab through the university would be the absence of the academic pressure of grading. Also, a student would have some of their materials funded instead of paying for them personally.
The chief of staff position would seek to alleviate the pressure of the chair and vice chair.
There would be a chief of staff position available for the 2010-11 school year, with a salary totaling $8,545.80.
Meetings with the dean, chancellor and Board of Regents, paired with the daily duties of keeping ASM intact, are detrimental to the chair and vice chair positions’ abilities to handle new student ideas, Junger said.
The position would be in charge of facilitating discussions with individual students. Currently, Junger said he and Vice Chair Tom Templeton do not have time to coordinate such interviews and this inhibits their ability to better serve students.
“I think the chief of staff would be beneficial for the chair and the vice chair and allow them to undertake new initiatives,” SSFC Vice Chair Michael Romenesko said.
The two Assistant Press Director positions were also expanded from eight to 12 hours a week, their salaries totaling $8,271. The positions were expanded to further delegate some of the responsibilities of the press director, whose stipend is proposed at $6,341.
Together, the changes would amount to less than a 1 percent increase in segregated fees.
The internal budget also allocated $400 for an end of the year ASM dinner.
The internal budget for 2009-10 was $1,102,023.76.
