Student government approved Badger Catholic’s budget Thursday night, but not until after it cut $5,817 from what the organization originally proposed.

Badger Catholic President Nico Fassino said he was disappointed about the cuts he said will prevent the organization from sending 10 members to an Evangelical Catholic leadership conference.

“I really feel like [the conference] is a valuable part of the year-round training we have instated. We only requested funding because we have a desire to provide a highly professional direct service,” Fassino said.

Student Services Finance Committee Chair Matt Manes said the committee felt it was unnecessary to send all 15 Badger Catholic leaders to the conference.

“The committee tried to save some money, but still allow the group to have a presence at that training,” Manes said.

Nico said despite the cuts, Badger Catholic will adjust and continue to provide direct services to the students on campus.

“We will make it work,” Fassino said. “Catholics are big on volunteering so if we ever reach the limit of our [paid staff] hours we’re not going to let that affect our operational and physical efficiency.”

After making a few adjustments, SSFC also approved the Working Class Student Union for $55,449 and Sex Out Loud for $84,737 in the 2011-12 fiscal year.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, the Multi-Cultural Student Coalition presented its budget and requested $225,786 for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

That amount is $38,560 less than what they were approved for in 2010-2011.

Ace Hilliard, an executive of MCSC, said the decrease is due to the group’s dedication to being as fiscally responsible as possible while providing the campus with invaluable services.

Hilliard said the organization’s paid staff logged over 1,000 volunteer hours last year.

“These volunteer hours prove that our staff is dedicated to the work that MCSC does, and we are committed to carrying out our mission statement,” Hilliard said.

Peter Lorenz, an administrative staff member in the program and finance department of MCSC, explained why the group returned all of its advertising funding from last year.
Lorenz said MCSC was approved to spend the money for advertisements in campus newspapers, but decided to boycott the newspapers because of their misrepresentation of multicultural issues on campus.

“Due to feelings of consistent misrepresentation in The Badger Herald and The Daily Cardinal, we decided we did not want to support them with our advertising dollars,” Lorenz said.

SSFC Representative Cale Plamann said that while he respected the organizations decision to boycott he was concerned the organization essentially did not use the money the way it was entrusted to.

“How do you expect us to trust you to be fiscally responsible when you were budgeted a decent chunk of change and gave it all back”? Plamann said.

Lorenz said the organization did do the fiscally responsible thing by returning the money instead of using it in an unauthorized way.

Hilliard said the organization has already engaged in positive conversations with specifically The Badger Herald, and plans on working with the paper to improve the representation of multicultural issues on campus.

“Hopefully down the line we can look forward to investing our money in various publications within The Badger Herald,” Hilliard said.

SSFC has doled out $1,087,200.60 in funding for budgets this year.