The Student Services Finance Committee met Monday night to hear budget presentations from the Child Care Tuition Assistance Program and student radio station WSUM. 

CCTAP helps support and guide student parents throughout their academic journey at the University of Wisconsin, according to CCTAP Director Cigdem Unal. This includes financial awards to cover high-quality care and education for children.

While childcare centers have decreased on college campuses, that has not been the case at UW, Unal said. There are currently three licensed and accredited childcare centers available on campus, along with six additional network centers throughout the Madison area to provide more options for student parents.

Ninety-seven percent of student participants said without CCTAP, they wouldn’t have been able to get an education, according to Unal. 

Emily Romero, a first-year law student at UW, shared how much this program has meant to her. Because of CCTAP, Romero was able to take her son to the Waisman Early Childhood Program on campus — one of the best places for autism therapy in the country, she said.

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“My son has a really great memory and a really great vocabulary but wasn’t speaking,” Romero said. “And now he says ‘I love you’ every night, and he’s speaking in sentences and singing.”

Childcare costs are second to the overall cost of attending UW, Unal said. Due to these rising prices, CCTAP requested a 3% budget increase.

Following CCTAP, WSUM general manager Kelsey Brannan presented the student radio’s 2023-2024 budget proposal. 

WSUM is one of the largest college radio stations in the country, Brannan said, with over 200 volunteers providing around the clock programming.

This fall marked the highest recruitment for the organization in recent memory, with 122 trainees enrolled, according to Brannan.

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“WSUM is really a learning laboratory for people to practice the skills that they’re learning in the classroom – or simply that they’re learning at WSUM – in a real world setting,” Brannan said.

Brannan requested a 3.3% budget increase to reflect the rising costs in areas of the budget with high degrees of cost certainty. These areas include employee costs and miscellaneous expenses, such as music licensing fees that are set to increase for the next five years, Brannan said.

The committee unanimously approved the ASM student transportation budget and recommends the long-standing cost sharing mechanism remain the same – 57.5% – for the next five year contract period.

Additionally, the committee approved the budget for Greater University Tutoring Services with two recommendations — the language program should seek greater cooperation and communication with Title VI National Resource Centers within the university to provide more cost-effective, integrated services, and the university should take financial responsibility for tutoring services falling outside of additional segregated fees.

The next SSFC meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 1.