Associated Students of Madison’s Student Council evaluated funding issues Wednesday and a proposed policy requiring campus area print centers, including Bob’s Copy Shop, to accept students’ credit cards.

Bob’s Copy Shop legislation proved to be the most controversial proposal of the meeting. The proposal would require all copy shops to accept credit card payments  in order to be more accessible to students.

“This has been a problem for seven years,” Rep. Steve Hughes said.“This is the best possible way to go about it. We are not trying to change what the professors are doing, we are trying to change what the copy shops are doing.”

This legislation was seen as controversial because the Student Print Board of Directors suggested that it violates a clause where private businesses must be allowed to remain in competition with the university.

ASM passed a motion deferring the issue to the University Affairs Committee.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is very good,” John Paetsch, chair of the University Affairs Committee, said. “But this isn’t the right way to handle it. My committee will handle it.”

Student Council also addressed the Green Fund, in a discussion led by Mary Prunty, chair of the Finance Committee.

“The Green Fund was created to allow students on campus to implement green projects that benefit the student body and promote sustainability,” Prunty said.

Last year the Sustainability Committee wrote policies and formed a procedure that would create an internal budget within the Finance Committee for the Green Fund. This year, $80,000 was allocated with a $20,000 cap for each proposal.

There is a three-step process for approving the allocation of funds, Prunty said. First, the Green Fund Allocation Board receives different applications and makes decisions regarding their importance.

The Green Fund Allocation Board makes recommendations to the Finance Committee, and the Student Council votes to approve those recommendations.

“This year we had eight applications,” Prunty said. “Six of which were approved by the Green Fund Allocation Board. However, three of the six approved applications had major conflicting issues against the F50.”

The F50, policy set forth by University of Wisconsin’s financial administration to regulate university fees, states that segregated fees cannot go to campus-wide activities and centrally-provided institutions.

Any application that is connected with a UW department is not permitted to receive funding from the ASM Financial Board, because the F50 states that they should be receiving money from their specific department.

“From this point forward the Green Fund Allocation Board is going to be reaching out to different parties on campus and working with UW legal affairs to make sure the conflicting grants are being interpreted correctly and consistently,” Prunty said.

In the future, there will be two options for spending the money allocated by ASM’s Finance Committee.

“We could restructure the Green Fund application process so applications tied to departments are no longer permitted to apply,” Prunty said. “We could also work with different parties on campus and create a partnership, so the applications that don’t comply with the F50 are able to use a different source of money.”