[media-credit name=’Grant Hauser/The Badger Herald’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]

University of Wisconsin students expressed outrage at the lack of multicultural representation covered by the Campus Services Fund at a student government meeting as representatives geared up for a long night of budget debate.

The Associated Students of Madison’s Student Council meeting Wednesday opened to several speakers who denounced the Campus Services Fund and its lack of support for multicultural services, as well as the general lack of student outreach made by Student Council.

“The transparency in this room is lacking,” said UW alumna Rebecca Pons.

She said the council is making decisions about student organizations without consulting the organizations or even informing them of conversations taking place about certain initiatives, including the CSF.

University Affairs Committee Chair Carl Fergus argued the representatives have had conversations with multicultural groups and asked Pont if she had read the CSF bylaws in their entirety.

Pons said she had not read all of the CSF legislation.

Max Love, a UW sophomore and former student council representative, also addressed the council about parts of the meeting’s agenda that bothered him.

Love informed the council there are many students who do not approve of the GSF.

He said the council has not heard this disapproval because they are not reaching out to the general student population on campus.

Love also criticized the council for not communicating with students on campus and making them more involved in student government issues

“ASM wonders why students don’t come here and don’t care,” Love said. “It’s because ASM does nothing to make those people care.”

He added the council should not focus on what it wants to give students, but should provide a means for students to get what they want.

Many council members responded to Love’s attacks, criticizing his remarks and questioning his ideas on how to solve the issues he highlighted.

Finance Committee Chair Matt Beemsterboer said Love did a great job of pointing out problems, but he was not hearing a lot of the solutions he had for these problems.

Love said he had not formulated complete solutions for the ideas because he is constantly trying to catch up on new issues and problems in student government.

Later on in the meeting, Love and many other students frustrated with the CSF and student government flooded into the room, surrounding the council members and making their presence known.

After the student speakers, representatives focused on debating the first draft of the internal budget.

Many representatives were concerned about the lobbyist position that appeared in Coordinating Council’s draft of the budget.

The council voted to change the name of the lobbyist position in the budget to governmental relations advisor and tentatively account for the position in the budget.

Vice Chair Adam Johnson said the council has until the end of January to create a job description for the position until it would be removed from the budget.

The student council also voted to cut the Creative Works Fund from $10,000 to $5,000 and cut the Chief of Staff’s stipend from $8,545 to $5,130.

The budget will now move to the Student Services Finance Committee.