The University of Wisconsin Student Services Finance Committee met to discuss the budget for itself and the Student Activity Center for the upcoming academic year Thursday.
Student Activity Center Governing Board Chair Ethan Park presented their annual budget request to the SSFC to fund the Student Activity Center for the 2024-2025 school year.
The budget will be voted on by members virtually Nov. 21.
Requests made by Park include partial salary funding for the Director of Student Organization Support position. Park also requested increased funding for facility costs of $128,000 and increased technology upgrades. In total the SACGB requested just under $1.3 million.
“We currently have no microphone capability, the AV system is not sufficient to use them. A system that will work to provide accessibility to students with disabilities, ideally including some form of interpretation,” Park said.
This change would cost $320,000, Park said.
The SSFC Chair Quinn Wakley then presented the SSFC budget proposal, which will be completed by Monday. Many of the budget changes regarded increased salary requested due to the 6% trend increase of projected salaries due to current market inflation.
Additionally the SSFC requested funding for speakers from faculty within UW and individuals outside of UW, like the Wisconsin State Assembly, for training and outreach purposes within SSFC, which as suggested by SSFC Rep. Shia Fisher.
SSFC Rep. Reed Lokken also suggested additional outreach work to encourage student organizations to apply for funding and grants through SSFC and the General Student Services Fund.
The GSSF is comprised of a portion of the Segregated Student Fee and can be accessed by Registered Student Organizations to pay for salaries, supplies and events.
“We look at the GSSF process and [want] to make it more accessible or reduce barriers for the dominant state at the beginning, and as students to students it shouldn’t feel that way,” Wakley said.
Wakley also suggested the importance of policy awareness in GSSF, which often determines how representatives interpret policy protocol and allocation of funds to students.
Fisher also suggested potential for funding of policy statistics and analytics.
“We can speak more clearly about the idea of serving students. We’re an academic institution, I think we should deploy some of our skills and research knowledge,” Fisher said.
SSFC will convene virtually on Nov. 20 at 6:00 p.m.
