The Student Services Finance Committee approved changes to its criteria that determines whether a student group is eligible to receive funding Monday.
Committee members approved a change to the language of an existing event bylaw.
The previous bylaw deemed direct services to students and events as mutually exclusive items. In order for student organizations to receive funding, they must be able to prove they provide a direct service to UW-Madison students in some way.
“Let’s say I’m in a student org and every week we hosted a support group,” SSFC Chair Sarah Neibart said. “Some consider those weekly meetings an event which would hurt its eligibility status.”
Members amended the language to include a “series of events” as a form of direct service to students.
Committee members said the change could prevent student organizations from being potentially denied funding from student segregated fees.
“This fixes a key problem we had with the previous eligibility criteria,” Plamann said. “A non-direct service event should not be excluded by how our bylaws are currently written.”
Also at the meeting, the committee approved the Student Transportation budget at around $4 million.
The budget determines the cost of student bus passes as well as both the SAFEride and SAFEcab services.
Currently, segregated fees cover about half of the program’s budget. Next year, however, students could be expected to shoulder a larger proportion.
Chancellor David Ward will decide what percentage of the program’s budget will be funded by segregated fees. Neibart said last Thursday if Ward does decide to increase segregated funds to transportation, she plans to appeal the decision.
