The Student Services Finance Committee approved two budgets for fiscal year 2020 Thursday night: the Student Activity Center Governing Board and Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment.
In a vote of 9-0-4, SSFC approved a budget of $331,126.97 for the SAC governing board. Through a handful of line-item amendments, SSFC reduced the total budget by $7,740.50. Most notably, SSFC voted to remove paid positions for GB members, a total reduction of $7,056.
The proposal to remove funding for SACGB members drew comparisons to the SSFC amendment earlier in the year that would have removed paid positions for the Grant Allocation Committee. The amendment was struck down during the Student Council budget hearing.
“I think when we look at SACGB, the case is even more clear,” Chair Jeremy Swanson said. “There’s less work involved in SACGB than Grant Allocations … It makes sense from a fiscal perspective from what kind of work gets paid here at ASM that we should remove this from the budget.”
The budget will be voted on at the next Student Council meeting. Budget amendments will require a two-thirds majority vote.
SSFC also approved an $83,581.50 budget for PAVE after reducing the budget by $3,693 through amendments. An amendment to reduce PAVE’s library and resource budget from $600 to $300 was deadlocked in a 4-4-4 vote and was only passed through a tie breaking vote from Swanson.
Rep. Josh Waldoch, who proposed the amendment, reasoned that although the group had not affirmed to SSFC that the change was sensible, the reduction would bring the group’s overall total more in line with what other groups had in place.
Rep. Zaakir Abdul-Wahid opposed the amendment, saying it had provided strong rationale as to why they needed the amount.
“A lot of their current information is really tailored towards only a specific demographic … the white woman experience,” Abdul-Wahid said. “So they’re really looking to find strides and create more resources for LGBT communities and students of color who also do have a lot of fights with sexual violence.”
SSFC also heard budget proposals for Wisconsin Association of Black Men and Sex Out Loud.
Sex Out Loud proposed a budget of $96,392.50 for the 2020 fiscal year, a reduction of $8,698.50 from the fiscal year 2019 budget. WABM proposed a budget of $34,662 for the 2020 fiscal year.
