The leader of the Student Services Finance Committee unveiled a plan to bring back the controversial Campus Services Fund to provide funding for student organizations seeking contract status.

SSFC Chair Sarah Neibart presented a new direction for the contract status debate, which includes eligibility for segregated fees and introduced an idea to bring back the Campus Services Fund.

The CSF, which was proposed last year but was not implemented, would provide a separate funding process for student organizations which have sought or currently seek eligibility and work independently of the General Student Services Fund realm.

Last week, the committee addressed the ongoing issue of how to fund groups that have been granted eligibility.

This would particularly affect the Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group, as they have requested contract status but have yet to obtain it.

Neibart said she had been thinking of reintroducing the CSF as a last resort and it is a viable solution to problems regarding contract status groups.

“This is not the solution to every problem within SSFC, but this is the solution to the problem at hand – contract status,” she said.

Neibart said the CSF would in no way be SSFC’s “baby,” because SSFC deals more with GSSF than with CSF.

The Associated Students of Madison Student Council will primarily make decisions regarding CSF.

Neibart said the CSF would involve a bidding process for services that do not fall within GSSF funding.

If a group believed it could offer a service that does not exist at the University of Wisconsin, it could gain funding through a process where student organizations would debate that service’s worth on campus.

SSFC Rep. David Vines asked why the committee could not just edit what exists in SSFC bylaws to work more efficiently for contract status groups.

Neibart said SSFC does not have the authority to create an internal process, according to UW Legal.

Rep. Cale Plamann said this process would be effective in that it would target services rather than specific figures in the bidding process, thus avoiding viewpoint neutrality violations.

Neibart said a finalized draft of the new CSF will be ideally introduced during Monday’s meeting. She also addressed the opposition the CSF faced last year.

Groups including WISPIRG,Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztl?n, and the Multicultural Student Coalition feared the GSSF would become undervalued with the introduction of the CSF, Neibart said.

Because the two processes would be separate and SSFC will always be primarily concerned with direct student services, this shouldn’t be a concern, she added.

WISPIRG Chair Matt Kozlowski said in an interview with The Badger Herald that WISPIRG has felt the contracting process has not been that complicated and that he feels reintroducing the CSF is unnecessary.

“Other schools in this country do this without making this a huge to-do, so we at UW-Madison can do this effectively,” Kozlowski said in the interview. “I think that creating a whole new process is a mistake.”

SSFC also passed the $68,761 2012-2013 budget for the Student Leadership Program.

Student organization Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment also presented its budget, which SSFC will vote on next week.