There are few committees of the Associated Students of Madison more involved and overworked than Student Services Finance Committee. Poring over incredibly involved applications for funding student groups, debating those budgets, dealing with the blowback after rejection, notifying each group of deadlines and dates and wrapping it all up by submitting their budget to the chancellor makes the duties of the chair quite overwhelming at times. And when the thanks you get is repeated lawsuits, complaints and tense moments at open forum, it’s a bit hard to have an honest, open conversation with the groups you’re supposed to be funding.

With that in mind, SSFC has proposed adding a new member to its family of budget hawks — an intern.

Given the fact that an SSFC appointee simply can’t be a point person on every funding issue and might encounter antagonism because of their voting position, SSFC has proposed that the large-ticket funding arm of ASM be given a volunteer dedicated to serving as a “middle-man” between SSFC and the student groups it funds. The intern would be responsible for receiving feedback from General Student Services Fund groups on how they view SSFC’s process and what they could improve upon.

In theory, this helps improve the image of SSFC to student groups. They no longer look like a council of robots whose recommendations are based on pure calculations and not holistic with regards to what services ASM should be funding. Sure, that’s an accurate description of how they should fund student groups, but it doesn’t exactly help them get work done when student groups are going to treat them with hostility when applying for funding.

This position isn’t necessary, but then again, it’s doesn’t cost anything either. If SSFC wants to improve relations with student groups this way, then by all means do it.

But keep one very important point in mind: The reason why SSFC functions despite the strife and lawsuits is because the people running it know their rules and regulations to a tee. They are trained on SSFC bylaws, nuances of applications, viewpoint neutrality and a host of standards that could derail the process if violated.

For that reason, an intern for SSFC can’t simply be some fresh-faced student who wants to “get involved.” It has to be someone who’s going to be, for all intents and purposes, a committee member at every meeting, monitoring budget situations and able to communicate complex information to student groups that would normally come from the chair. Essentially, it could be a paid position in terms of duties.

So if you’ve got some poor soul who wants to dedicate his or her life to communicating direct service criteria to your WISPIRGs and Vets for Vets, go right ahead. But make sure he or she is actually in it for the long haul. Otherwise, that new line of communication could leave you out of the loop.