The Student Services Finance Committee voted to pay the ASM secretary and heard the proposed budget for the Student Activity Center Governing Board at their meeting Tuesday.
SSFC voted on whether or not to transition the position of ASM secretary from an unpaid position to a paid one as part of their internal budget hearing. The position would pay $16 an hour, Jacobson said.
The ASM secretary was considered as a paid position above other ASM members because the secretary is expected to perform duties outside of regular hours, such as taking minutes at all meetings and receiving drafted legislation, according to Representative Steven Shi.
Making the position paid will incentivize future ASM secretaries to give their demanding jobs their all, Representative Ekaan Ahmad said.
“Anybody who puts in that kind of labor should be paid,” Ahmad said. “The position is supposed to be accessible, and we need to ensure that.”
The committee voted to approve the motion, but by cutting the secretary’s hours to three per week.
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SSFC spokesperson Kevin Jacobson, also a Student Activity Center Governing Board member, presented a spreadsheet listing the proposals for different sections of their budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July.
There are very few changes to the proposed budget from the past fiscal year, which ended in June, Jacobson said.
“The largest [change] will be no more salaries in the internal budget,” Jacobson said.
Jacobson added that the necessary supplies have gone up in price and remained there, and that prices don’t appear to be decreasing, creating an increase in the proposed budget.
SACGB will be getting rid of reservation software to use centralized forms of software with unions, Jacobson said.
The proposed budget includes a $5,000 increase for repairs and a $2,000 increase in long-term maintenance funds, Jacobson said. SACGB will also be switching to desktop computers, leading to another increase in the proposed budget.
When he wrote the budget for the current fiscal year, he included an allocation of $500 to go toward environmental conservation efforts, Jacobson said. He said he did not include this in the new budget proposal because $500 doesn’t go very far when it comes to sustainability measures, and it would be more productive to put the money toward other uses.
“It would probably just be better to put more money into the maintenance fund,” Jacobson said.
Jacobson said SACGB will increase its art outreach efforts to support University of Wisconsin art in the coming year.
SSFC will vote on the budget proposal at their Thursday meeting, according to Vice Chair Andrew Pietroske.
SSFC next meets Thursday, Nov. 17.
