An Associated Students of Madison committee unanimously approved Greater University Tutoring Service’s budget correction and heard a budget presentation from Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment.
At the Student Services Finance Committee meeting, PAVE requested $79,043 for this coming year.
“We are a student organization dedicated to preventing sexual assault, dating violence and stalking on the UW-Madison campus through education and activism,” Jessica Utterback, finance coordinator for PAVE, said.
Utterback said PAVE requested $20,328 for its programming because of the number of programs they hold every year.
Programs include Domestic Violence Awareness Month, ongoing awareness events, Men’s Leadership, Stalking Awareness Month, a campus awareness bus campaign, Media Advocacy and Analysis, an LGBT keynote speaker, Wisconsin Welcome Week and more.
SSFC Vice Chair Thuy Pham questioned the low attendance rate for the programs, as only 15 people were present for the LGBT speaker last year and so the cost per head came to $20 a person.
“Our strategic plan for this year is to do better advertising. … There has been a slow increase in attendance, but it is really going to start this year because the White House has the ‘It’s On Us’ campaign and the issues surrounding the NFL were heavily covered by the media,” Utterback said.
SSFC Rep. James Ng asked for elaboration on the class that is run via PAVE.
Utterback said two of their peer education coordinators write discussion questions and run a discussion session after weekly lectures from professors or community speakers. Each week is a different topic related to their organization, Utterback said.
Students receive credit for the course, which was created with University Health Services and the university’s social work department, and the discussion leaders must have taken it in order to teach it. The budget line is used to hire speakers when University of Wisconsin professors are unavailable, Utterback said.
Utterback said PAVE wanted $600 in its software and hardware budget line so they could buy a dual monitor to use Adobe Illustrator better in their office.
Also Monday, SSFC unanimously approved GUTS’s amendment to their salary line, which lowered their original request by $2,001.
SSFC Chair Devon Maier said over the last few years, GUTS had accidentally set their salaries at an unnecessarily high level. They proposed this budget change to SSFC as a way to save money, he said.
GUTS originally requested $20,466 for both the director and associate director positions.
Andrew Mangham, co-director of GUTS, said the salary they originally proposed was set in the 2008-2009 academic year.
GUTS reduced its request to $18,465, which is only 2 percent above the $18,094 used last year. Mangham said this is still more than they technically need for salaries.
“However, we strongly wish to avoid having to come back to the SSFC and request more funds from student segregated fees because we did not anticipate a raise in the directors’ salaries,” Mangham said.
