Tonight the Student Services Finance Committee faces the unpleasant task of deciding the budget for the Multicultural Student Coalition. This is a group that asked for nearly $1 million dollars of student money in 2002. After some intense discussion and much-needed whittling down of its budget, the MCSC was granted $517,695 last year.
After incessant complaining last year about how much their budget was cut, the MCSC turned around and used only $369,549.27 of their total allotment.
For this school year, the group has been granted a $466,050 budget, despite the fact that they were not able to utilize that much money the previous year.
Now the MCSC is bringing its budget for the 2004-2005 school year before SSFC. Amazingly, their budget has ballooned once again as they ask for $673,984.69. This is almost double what they spent last year. What is this extra money going to fund?
The MCSC is asking for $372,520 for staff salaries alone. Once again, we remind you this figure alone is more than the group was even able to spend last year. The SSFC needs to look at this portion of the budget and make some serious changes.
The mandated minimum wage for student organization employees is $8.52, but none of the MSCS salaried workers are getting paid less than $9.50 and they are even asking to have six full-time staffers be paid $10 an hour each. A lot can also be said for organizations that utilize workers who volunteer their time because of the sheer importance of what it is they are trying to accomplish.
Another significant problem with MCSC’s proposed budget is the figure proposed for travel expenses. The $35,983 travel budget is more than many SSFC funded groups receive for their entire budget. How can the MCSC even begin to justify this expense?
They have set aside money for — drum roll, please — 11 trips. These are not just a few road trips to the great states of Minnesota or Illinois, mind you, but trips to Santa Barbara, Miami, San Francisco, Austin, New York, and Washington, D.C. to name a few.
We agree that their might be some value in going to conferences in other regions of the country, but are 11 such trips necessary when this is being paid for by your student tax dollars? Hardly.
In addition to such lofty numbers for travel and salary expenses the MCSC wants to spend $5,440 on T-Shirts. MCSC argues this expense is necessary to create unity, just as the sea of red at Badger football games creates unity, but when was the last time UW bought you your Badger T-shirt?
There are also quite a few miscellaneous items in the MCSC budget that do not add up to much by themselves, but after they become serious problems when they are added together. For example, MCSC is asking for $132.06 for tissues, $225.78 for pencil sharpeners, $105.54 for wipes for the phone and computers, $565.50 for four different kinds of tape and — perhaps the most glaring example — $424.80 for pens. It is the large amount of money requested for items like this that make it hard to take the MCSC’s budget seriously.
MCSC is also asking for over $47,000 to go toward computer software and hardware. The organization already has 15 computers no more than two years old and now wants one more “super” computer along with 6 laptops. It is reaching the point where each worker for the MCSC has his or her very own computer. How many other organizations can say this. If the SSFC grants these computer wishes that would give the MCSC a total of $114,638.64 for computer technology over three years.
The bottom line is that MCSC is obviously putting forward an unreasonable and, quite frankly, obnoxious budget request. We call on the SSFC to put an end to this nonsense and give them only what is fair and necessary for their group to function.
