Associated Students of Madison voted for the passing of ASM’s internal budget for the next fiscal year and discussed shared governance during their last meeting of the semester Wednesday night.
Shared Governance
Student Council Chair Madison Laning and Shared Governance Chair Jessica Franco-Morales called attention to a change in state stature, which makes faculty, academic staff and students subject to the chancellor. Laning said this requires them to create a new shared governance policy that more clearly defines their roles in student committees.
Franco-Morales called for an “active partnership,” with officials because ASM does not want to be subordinate to them. She said ASM should hold Chancellor Rebecca Blank accountable for not consulting the group during the out-of-state cap waive discussions.
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Blank said June 11 she would remain committed to the process of shared governance, but Franco-Morales said she did not uphold to this statement.
Franco-Morales said this is a subject for concern as violations can and have taken place in regard to shared governance in areas where students should have had opinions but were not given the opportunity.
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“We are on the same playing field as academic staff. We make up a large part of this institution and should have as much a part in decisions as anyone else at this university,” Laning said.
Internal budget
One of the biggest matters of contention was a motion placed by Finance Committee Chair Ariela Rivkin to increase event grants from $200,000 to $220,000.
Rep. Zaakir Abdul-Wahid said he was the one who proposed the deduction to $200,000 based on the fact that they typically underspent about $70,000.
“If they are always going to use a lower amount of the money, then the best thing to do is decrease it,” Abdul-Wahid said. “What’s the point in increasing something if they are never going to reach their max?”
Abdul-Wahid said there has not been substantial justification for the extra $20,000 and that the likelihood for the events grant to narrow its gap of under spending significantly in the next fiscal year is slim.
Despite Abdul-Wahid’s efforts, the motion carried with a vote of 12-4.
Shortly thereafter, there was a motion to increase funds for general advertising from $1,500 to $2,500. Student Council Secretary Alex Schultz said due to the recent creation of a new logo for ASM, they would like to increase their advertising funds in order to distribute and promote it in an effort to bridge the gap between the student body and ASM.
Student Services Finance Committee Chair Thuy Pham said that there is not a need for this drastic increase as traditional ways of advertising no longer work and other organizations are also being asked to lower their budget for advertising.
“When we do a budget we need to look at exactly what we have been spending so we aren’t just throwing random amounts of money around,” Pham said. “Let’s be more responsible with putting numbers out.”
The motion to increase the advertising budget failed to pass with a vote of 6-3 with 3 abstentions.
The internal budget of $1,392,064 passed with a vote of 15 to 0 with one abstention.
