SSFC votes to approve Policies & Procedures, Standing Rules draft, reports on StudentPrint situation

Committee discussed financial situation of StudentPrint after UW blocked ASM-allocated funds over legal restrictions

by Haley Bills

March 22, 2021

The Student Services Finance Committee met Monday to review and vote on their SSFC Policies & Procedures and Standing Rules drafts.

SSFC reviewed changes to the drafts, which included citing bylaw sections instead of their entirety and hyperlinking them for individuals to reference.

SSFC discusses adjusting bylaws, updating violations language

SSFC voted unanimously to approve both drafts. SSFC chair Tessa Reilly said the legislation will be introduced at the Associated Students of Madison Student Council meeting on Tuesday. Reilly said in conversations with ASM chair Matthew Mitnick he indicated that the changes would pass.

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“I don’t think we will have any issues passing this through,” Reilly said.

SSFC will need to make some further changes to the drafts after this meeting, according to Reilly.

SSFC also discussed the financial situation of StudentPrint — a student-run, nonprofit print shop on campus — in the chair’s report. While the Reserve Board allocated segregated fee funds in the reserves to help the struggling student organization, the university retracted the funds from StudentPrint’s account last week, according to Twitter threads posted by ASM representatives.

Reilly said the university did an analysis of StudentPrint’s request of reserve funds and found that the request was in violation of the UW System policy 820 — a legal policy which determines how student segregated fees can be allocated.

According to the report, StudentPrint would not be able to spend the segregated fee money on the things they want due to policy 820 restrictions. But, Reilly said there is conversation going on between StudentPrint and university administrators about the possibility to be absorbed by the Wisconsin Unions.

SSFC drafts, approves Recreation & Wellbeing Reserve Board Request

StudentPrint is heavily considering this option, according to the report. In response to a request from StudentPrint, SSFC and ASM scrapped legislation that would have indicated their support for StudentPrint. The legislation was slated to be discussed at the student council meeting on Tuesday.

SSFC will meet again Thursday, March 25 at 6 p.m. over Zoom.