The Associated Students of Madison Student Council cut the amount of funds the Campus Women’s Center would have received from the Finance Committee Operations Grant in half because of concerns over viewpoint neutrality Wednesday.
The amendment cut CWC’s Operations Grant from $33,100 to $15,376 for next year, meaning the group will be allocated a quarter of the total Operations Grant Funds it received this year.
ASM Secretary Kurt Gosselin introduced the amendment because he felt the Finance Committee in awarding CWC a large grant violated viewpoint neutrality.
“The biggest key was that the outcome, for in this case the Campus Woman’s Center, was despairingly different from every other one,” Gosselin said. “That in of itself is almost a guarantee signal that there’s an issue.”
The debate centered on whether CWC was receiving such a large grant to provide them with money to provide services. The operations grant money is supposed to be given out for daily operating costs of organizations, according to Finance Committee Chair Matthew Beemsterboer, who added he was not comfortable with the way the Finance Committee approved the CWC grant.
“There was discussion among committee members, some with mikes muted, alluding to the service the Campus Women’s Center provided campus,” Beemsterboer said. “If we were discussing services, we would be the Student Services Finance Committee.”
Rep. Max Love said he disagreed with amending CWC’s funding, and it was only being looked at because it was such a large sum.
He added Gosselin was not present at the Finance Committee meeting when the grant was passed, so he could not know if viewpoint neutrality was violated.
“I think the Finance Committee did their job and established the level for the grant, and it was passed,” Love said. “I would urge the members of the committee to think about this rationale and try to see where this is coming from.”
Earlier this year CWC was not approved to be eligible for General Student Services Funds from SSFC. In response, they submitted a new budget to the Finance Committee that reflected just its operating costs, according to CWC Programming Coordinator Tina Trevi?o-Murphy.
Trevi?o-Murphy said she thinks CWC was singled out because of the large sum of money it requested. She added it was a shame ASM only looked at and questioned CWC’s request.
“I think it’s telling that the two people who made the original motion were the secretary of SSFC and the SFFC legal counsel who both interacted closely with us through our appeals process,” Trevi?o-Murphy said. “I’m sure they were not neutral in making those motions.”
Gosselin said after the meeting he feels the amendments made the Operations Grant funding more reasonable.
“I think that the budget as decided represents probably a more fair and accurate distribution for organizations than the original recommendations that came from the Finance Committee,” Gosselin said.
