Student Services Finance Committee Chair Brandon Williams addressed the committee on a lesson in accounting because a review of the non-allocable budgets was in question.
The budgets for the Wisconsin Union, University Health Services, Child Care Tuition Assistance Program and Recreational Sports are up for their annual review by the committee, and Williams cautioned the committee to focus on questioning the bigger picture items.
“Our purpose is to examine these budgets and get an understanding on what they are planning on doing and what they have done,” Williams said. “We shouldn’t downplay our role on looking at this.”
He added student involvement on these budgets has been disappointing. With the students sitting in on Union Council, he said very few questions were asked and none of them were tough to answer.
SSFC Secretary Matt Manes had an opposite viewpoint on how much say the committee actually had in overlooking these budgets.
“We just check on them to make sure they are fiscally responsible. There are specialist accountants and many, many eyes have already looked at these,” Manes said. “We should just look at the big picture; we are here as the last student check on the operations of these units.”
Williams said he had attended Union Council and asked several questions on which they said they are working.
“I asked for the breakdown of revenue for the delis and restaurants; the spending breakdown on the Union South building project,” Williams said.
Last year, Williams said some of these questions were brought up and when asked for more information, the Union could not get it to them.
To fix this, Williams said he is making the process for the decisions on the budgets more drawn-out to give the groups time to put together more information on what money goes where, particularly for student segregated fees.
In addition, Williams explained the university has the segregated fees capped at a 1.9 percent increase for non-allocable budgets and each budget is supposed to remain inside those constraints.
Both the UHS and Union budget had increases of more than 6 percent while CCTAP had no change and RecSports had an increase of exactly 1.9 percent.
“They are allowed to have increases in their budgets,” Williams said. “It just means that somewhere along the process, there are extra steps to be taken. We’re not really sure what those are.”
SSFC Rep. Grant Smith said he would be interested in learning more about the services, particularly the free ones that UHS provides and how those are financed.
As for the Natatorium Renovations, the committee agreed the origins of the money, where it was being spent and the goals of the campaign were unclear.
Manes said he will focus his line of questioning on the buildings and the Nat. He plans to ask about which options have been explored for renovation and what expenses involved relate to segregated fees.
SSFC will hear presentations for the four budgets at its Monday Feb. 8 meeting.
