The Student Services Finance Committee met Thursday to discuss the pending impeachment suit filed by Chair Matt Manes and to approve budget alterations for the Multicultural Student Coalition and Supporting Peers in Laidback Listening
The committee briefly addressed Chair Manes' impeachment suit against Student Judiciary Vice Chief Justice Timothy Hogan.
""With 23 days left in the session, if we haven't settled the question of WISPIRG's eligibility the process will simply stall; as soon as the session turns over this matter will stop wherever it is, and that would have very bad consequences for everybody,"" said Manes in an e-mail to the Associated Students of Madison.
In the e-mail, Manes said he was willing to drop the impeachment suit if ASM could specify the definition for student groups' ""direct services"" within the next two weeks.
The direct-service definition would impact the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group, who recently won a complaint before the Student Judiciary after SSFC denied their funding eligibility a second time. If ASM changed the definition, SSFC would inevitably deny WISPIRG funding a third time.
SSFC also voted to shift funds within the MCSC and SPILL budgets.
MCSC financial staffer Peter Lorenz requested fund shifts within the group's current 2011-'12 budget.
The shifts included an adjustment to co-sponsor the printing costs of multicultural arts and literature women's magazine, Women in REDzine, with the Campus Women's Center.
Also at the meeting, SSFC granted SPILL's request and consolidated several funding lines to increase the peer counseling group's marketing budget by $4,495.
The group said the marketing increase was needed to reach out to more students during stressful times such as finals week.
The finance committee also spent several hours in subcommittees to discuss revisions to the group's operations manual.
