With the passage of a potentially devastating state budget proposal looming, the Student Services Finance Committee debated the budgets of two student resources that may be in jeopardy.
WSUM, UW-Madison’s student radio station, and the Student Activity Center are among a number of clubs and campus services that would likely lose funding if Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial plan to make allocable segregated fees optional for students is approved.
In a meeting held Thursday night, WSUM presented to the committee first. The station’s general manager, Dave Black, outlined the organization’s proposed budget for 2017-’18, which included a 3 percent total increase, mostly to cover technology costs.
Eleven WSUM staff members, mostly students, were also present at the meeting to voice their support for the station.
“When I was applying here, I wrote about [WSUM] in my application because I knew I wanted to do it,” Izzy Fradin, WSUM’s music director, told the committee. “My experience here wouldn’t be the same without it.”
Erica Gelman, the station’s administrative support specialist, said that if WSUM disappeared from campus, it would have “enormous consequences” on the student body.
“The opportunities on a radio station are not trivial,” Gelman said. “The activities aren’t just music, business, communications … it’s also personal growth.”
After amending it to increase the salary of the station’s top-ranking student employees, the committee passed WSUM’s budget unanimously at $387,470.15.
Later in the evening, Katrina Morrison, chair of the Student Activity Center governing board, presented the SAC’s proposed budget.
The SAC, which is run as part of Associated Students of Madison, receives its funding from segregated fees and could be in jeopardy if Walker’s proposal passes.
Morrison then took SSFC members on a tour of the SAC. The committee plans to approve the budget next Monday.
SSFC members and other students are anxiously waiting to see whether Walker’s proposal will pass the state legislature as part of the biennial budget. Other student resources that could be affected if it does are the ASM bus pass and the Rape Crisis Center.
