It appears the UW Roman Catholic Foundation, in an effort to do its best to compete for SSFC’s “Most Oversized Budget Award” will do well in this competition to take as much of your money as possible. Having never received money from SSFC before, the Foundation has decided to start big — to the tune of $170,000.
The budget starts with a request for 12-14 student employees, who will be paid an astounding $9-12 an hour. While these types of salaries are sure to make the Madison “Fair” wage campaign smile, they are well above the already overly-generous $8.52 an hour other SSFC funded organizations pay their employees.
The budget request also includes over $15,000 for food — more money than groups like Polygon Engineering have received for their total budget. Exactly how many pizzas do they need to buy? This $15,000 is on top of the more than $38,000 the organization is requesting for “off-campus space rental/meals,” which begs the question of why almost everything must be done off-campus. If this is a service for university students, every effort should be made to keep the service accessible to all students and at the lowest possible cost for students. That means keeping activities on-campus.
The services offered by this organization appear to be available mainly for a small group of students. The number of students it will reach is certainly not large enough to justify the $77,843 for programs. One example of a “program” the foundation wants to provide is an alternative spring break trip. This spring break program is designed to fund only 150 students, yet will cost the rest of the student body over $30,000.
All organizations that provide a substantial service to the students of this university must legally be granted eligibility to receive funding according to the Southworth v. Board of UW Regents Supreme Court decision. But no organizations that are religious, ethnic or political in nature should get a free pass from close scrutiny, particularly when some of these budgets are so outrageously high, when the fundamental mission of the group is not necessarily geared toward all students on campus.
The Roman Catholic Foundation does not need $15,000 for computer software and hardware. Nowhere in their budget application do they even try to justify the need for any of this money. This line item is only a taste of the oversized budget. SSFC must hold organizations responsible for their budget requests and strike down these large requests to increase the taxes students pay in their tuition bill at this university, especially when those groups provide little or no legitimate justification for such funds.
