At a contentious meeting Monday, the Student Services Finance Committee approved the Muslim Student Association budget in a 9-0-4 vote and heard the eligibility hearing for the Student Leadership Program.
After SSFC heard the funding eligibility hearing for MSA last week, the committee held debate over the amount of funding MSA will receive in fiscal year 2019.
Rep. Max Goldfarb began the debate by introducing a motion to completely deny MSA its requested $39,000 budget for fiscal year 2019.
Every club which is eligible for general student services funding must meet several standards to be granted that eligibility. In what Goldfarb called “unfortunate,” he said MSA fails to meet many of those requirements and is thus GSSF-ineligible.
SSFC representatives who opposed the defunding of MSA said the club, which is new and only just started receiving SSFC funding last year, should be allowed some leeway from the committee’s eligibility bylaws.
Rep. Jordan Madden also brought up the wider political climate into which Goldfarb introduced his motion, implying that the political alignment of certain representatives might be influencing how they vote.
“I really start to question what the viewpoint neutrality is of this committee when we have someone here with a Trump sticker on their laptop and then people here who have been funded by a conservative student PAC to get on this committee,” Madden said.
After over an hour of contentious debate, SSFC decided in a 4-6-2 vote to reject Goldfarb’s motion to deny MSA of any funds for fiscal year 2019. Goldfarb, Rep. Dylan Resch, Rep. Jeremy Swanson and Rep. Henry Galles all voted in favor of Goldfarb’s motion.
After debating the finer points of MSA’s budget, SSFC, in a 9-0-4 vote, granted MSA a budget of $21,394 for fiscal year 2019.
Also at Monday’s meeting, SSFC heard the eligibility presentation of the the Student Leadership Program.
Internal affairs and development director Jake Walczyk, financial director Jenny Soler, organization outreach branch coordinator Courtney Wong and leadership events and training coordinator Michael Melendy presented their eligibility hearing to SSFC.
“Our mission statement is to develop effective and essential leadership skills in students and student groups through comprehensive leadership education and diverse experiences,” Walczyk said.
In SLP’s presentation, the club proposed an overall decrease in $1,307.50 from their previous budget for fiscal year 2019.
Additionally, SLP proposed redistributing its funding so more is geared toward program funding and less is allocated for other sources, such as staff salaries.
SSFC will vote on SLP’s budget at a later date.
