The Associated Students of Madison held its bi-weekly meeting Thursday night to address several pending issues on campus including ASM's Student Services Finance Committee and the Board of Regents Bill 175.
SSFC member J.D. Blythin addressed ASM on the current process of hearing and deciding upon student organizations' budgets. He expressed concern that the hearings be finished by the deadline of Nov. 10, and he asked the board to extend the hearing deadlines to Dec. 1.
\ASM runs until 2 a.m. If we don't extend this we will run all night on Sunday [Nov. 6] until six in the morning,"" Blythin said.
He said that including the five organizations whose budgets still need to be heard, the groups whose budgets have already been decided are free to appeal.
""[The extension] allows us to take care of monetary hearings and all the appeals that came up. We also still have five budgets to approve,"" Blythin said.
Taking a hand vote, SSFC received its extension with a vote of 20 in favor with one abstention.
ASM Representative and SSFC Member Scott Spector accounted for the quick majority votes as being nothing controversial.
""This is a logistical motion more than a controversial one,"" Spector said. ""We've been meeting three times a week for up to seven hours.""
Spector said the extension was necessary for SSFC to give each organization an equal chance, emphasizing that the extension was not to give more time to groups that have already been heard.
""We want to make sure that all groups have a fair chance,"" Spector said.
ASM also heard lobbyists on the resolution of Senate Bill 175, a bill to add a student regent to the UW System Board of Regents which passed the Senate Committee on Universities, Housing and Government operations Wednesday, United Council's legislative affairs director, Craig Trost, said it is important for this bill to pass because students are not being properly represented on the Board of Regents.
""[Students] have a seat on the board but are not allowed to pick who that person is,"" Trost said.
The student on the Board of Regents is usually a nontraditional student, whom Trost said has an important voice that needs to be heard, but is not representative of the student voice as a whole.
