The University of Wisconsin Student Services Finance Committee convened Monday to hear 2024-2025 fiscal year budget proposals for WSUM and Associated Students of Madison Student Judiciary and to vote on the budget proposal for the Student Transportation Board.
WSUM, the University’s official student radio station, proposed a 3.5% increase for their 2024-2025 budget. The proposed change would increase their current budget from $458,403.96 to $470,899.39. WSUM Director of Radio Kelsey Brannan said allocating more money for the recruitment of an experienced engineer was an essential component of their proposed budget increase.
“We are tragically without an engineer right now. We can’t stay that way for long, and this is the third time we’re having to go through this search in the last year,” Brannan said. “So what I’ve learned from one failed search and one failed retention is that this cannot be an entry level position, and it also cannot be a career change for someone. We’ve tried both of those things — it does not work.”
Outside of salary expenses, which accounts for approximately 78% of their proposed budget, WSUM plans to draw money from their reserves to finance significant infrastructure maintenance like repainting the radio tower —$18,000 — replacing the antenna dehydrator —$10,000 — and painting at the WSUM studio — up to $19,000.
The Student Judiciary – a branch of the Associated Students of Madison – also presented their budget proposal to the SSFC. The Student Judiciary’s budget proposal did not include many significant changes from the prior year’s expenses which included salary pay, website and ballot software fees, and promotional costs ranging from the production of fliers to occasionally hiring Bucky to promote the organization.
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When asked by SSFC Chair Quinn Wakley how many cases the student judiciary handles in a year, Vice Chief Justice Allie Chang said the Student Judiciary sees five cases on average, but recently things have been slowing down.
“Usually in a year it’s about five, but granted in the past few years its been slower, probably because of COVID, and that’s another reason why we added that $200 into our training budget, just so that the newer GCs [general counsels] and the newer associate justices are able to be familiar with hearing a case, arguing for a case and writing an opinion. So it’s been a little bit slower, last year there were four. This year we’ve yet to hear a single case,” Chiang said.
Both proposals will be voted on at SSFC’s next meeting on Thursday.
SSFC additionally resolved a prior budget proposal from the Student Transportation Board pertaining to the SSFC’s cost-share of on campus bus services. According to the UW Transportation Services website, on-campus Metro Transit service is provided at no charge to users, but rather shared between Transportation Services, the Associated Students of Madison – comprised of the Student Council, Student Judiciary and SSFC along with University Housing.
This year the Transportation Board proposed a budget of $4,662, 786, a $275,972 increase from last year’s budget.
After much deliberation and tweaking of their contract with Transportation Services, which stipulates a 57.5% cost share for the on-campus bus service, five members of the committee voted in favor of the motion to approve the contract and one member abstained.
The committee will meet again on Thursday, Nov. 30 in the Student Activity Center’s Hearing Room.
