The Student Services Finance Committee met Monday to vote on the eligibility of Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment the University of Wisconsin for General Student Services Fund status for the fiscal year of 2023, later amending and approving its budget.
Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment the University of Wisconsin, also known as PAVE-UW, proposed a budget of $73,079.50 at the SSFC meeting last Monday. The organization presented changes to its campus bus campaign, multicultural keynote speaker, awareness speaker and other items to result in a reduced total salary budget.
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During Monday’s meeting, Rep. Charlie Fahey proposed a $60 cut from PAVE’s website design budget. Fahey cited PAVE’s assertion last meeting that if the cut was made, PAVE would be able to adapt.
“The previous fiscal year, the [budget] line amount was $410. And what they proposed was an increase to $300,” Fahey said. “They basically said that it was okay for us to take out that $60 after reviewing their plans.”
The vote among the representatives for the amendment resulted in a tie. After asking voting representatives if they would wish to change their vote, Chair Maxwell Laubenstein broke the tie, voting in opposition to the amendment.
Rep. Rianna Mukherjee added $200 for workers’ compensation — an addition to all GSSF student organizations she mentioned at SSFC’s last meeting. With seven yeses, zero nays and five abstentions, SSFC passed a new workers’ compensation budget line for PAVE. The committee approved the a total $73,279.50 budget for PAVE.
Moving forward with the agenda, Laubenstein said the Atheists Humanists Agnostics group requested a change in its hearing date for GSSF status for the fiscal year of 2023.
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Atheists Humanists Agnostics, known as AHA, does not currently have status as a Registered Student Organization, which Laubenstein said disqualifies the group from being heard as an eligible GSSF organization.
Due to the potential change in the group’s student organization status, however, it’s important to get the perspective of the committee on rescheduling a hearing date.
“If other orgs who had earlier hearing dates were able to handle this, I see no reason why [AHA] should not have been able to handle it as well,” Rep. Kevin Jacobson said.
SSFC will meet again on Dec. 2.
