Student body government approved final changes to student organization funding in their last meeting of the year Wednesday night.
The Associated Students of Madison Student Council approved the Finance Committee operations grants after funds that were cut from the Campus Women’s Center were re-allocated to other organizations.
The Campus Women’s Center funding was lowered because of concerns over viewpoint neutrality and claims the funds were not being used for basic operations of the group.
Finance Chair Matthew Beemsterboer said they awarded additional funds to 11 other groups. He added they gave some of the funds to groups who had previously made appeals that were not fully funded.
He added three groups spoke in open forum at their meeting and also received additional funding.
Representative Max Love questioned whether it was a violation that all the student groups were not notified of additional funding through e-mail.
“I don’t think that we should be approving this tonight, that’s the point that no groups were notified,” Love said. “The fact is there is a possibility that groups didn’t hear about this, and it’s not their responsibility to seek out the information.”
Beemsterboer said he notified all the groups who applied for funding that student council could change the amounts, adding he also posted on the ASM website additional funding was available.
He added he allowed every organization to apply for the funds, but he did not want to send a notice out to everyone.
“My thought was that if we go and tell every organization that there was additional funding, that every organization was going to come and it would be a clusterfuck,” Beemsterboer said.
Love said there wasn’t enough discussion to be passing the grants.
“That is really irresponsible to me for the finance committee chair to say something like that. It’s saying that you don’t want to do the work, and that’s something I’ve heard all year,” Love said. “In my opinion, there are going to be student groups who are pissed, and they will probably sue.”
Secretary Kurt Gosselin said he didn’t have a problem approving the operations grants because the information was available online to all the groups. He added ASM should not have to be a nanny and walk the groups through the process.
Student Council also declined a motion to send a letter to the University of Wisconsin administration showing support for El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztl?n.
Beemsterboer said there wasn’t much they could do in two days about the resolution. He added it could be sent to next session to be worked on.
“Since representative Love is a freshman…and will be on through next fall, and if you want to figure something out then you will have the opportunity,” Beemsterboer said.
Student Activity Center Governing Board Chair Katy Ziebell said MEChA’s final appeal for the largest space available in the SAC was denied, adding they signed a lease for a slightly smaller office space.
No members of MEChA attended the meeting.
