University of Wisconsin student organizations might have to look into alternative sources for funding travel plans after the student government’s travel grant funds dwindled drastically during a meeting on Tuesday.
The Associated Students of Madison Finance Committee came close to exhausting its entire travel grant fund for the year during its first meeting of the spring semester. The committee reviewed an unusually high number of travel grants requests for one meeting, hearing 17 travel event requests.
Finance Committee Chair Matt Beemsterboer said he decided to schedule most of the travel grant request hearings for the committee’s first meeting because many groups had imminent travel plans, and he wanted to accommodate their plans.
He added that he knew the travel grant funds were running low and wanted to hear most of the requests for travel grants during one meeting.
Before the committee dove into reviewing the grant requests, Beemsterboer warned committee members and potential grant recipients that the remaining funds might not even be enough to cover every request the committee was going to review that night.
“There is a good chance that we might run out of travel grant money for the year [tonight],” Beemsterboer said.
Despite Beemsterboer’s warning, the committee did cover all of the requests that were heard during the meeting.
The Finance Committee gave away about $25,000 in travel grants, leaving only $1,200 left to distribute among applicants for the rest of the semester.
The largest amounts were allocated to Hoofers Alpine Ski Team, which received five separate grants totaling about $3,500, and Hillel Alternative Spring Break, which received $4,000 for its trip to Rwanda.
Beemsterboer said the amount left over in the travel grant fund might allow the committee to approve four more travel grants next week, even though there are about 20 more grant requests that are pending review.
Beemsterboer added many of those grants will not even be reviewed by the committee.
“We’re pretty much done with travel for the rest of the year,” Beemsterboer said.
Last year, Finance Committee had $125,000 designated for travel grants, Beemsterboer said. This year, the committee only had $100,000 to fund them, which contributed to the shortfall.
The committee has also seen more travel grants than it has in the past. He added there were still problems with the travel grant funds last year.
ASM Student Council Chair Brandon Williams said there was a similar situation last year with the travel grant fund.
It is not uncommon for the Finance Committee to run out of funds for travel grants before any other type of grant, Williams said.
Williams added the $25,000 slashed from travel grant fund did not help.
Williams said there has been discussion about supplementing the travel grant fund with reserve money – money left over from ASM’s fiscal year.
Beemsterboer said the Reserve Board will continue to discuss the use of the reserve funds during their first meeting of the semester.
