The Student Service Finance Committee approved a budget of nearly $150,000 for the Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG) Monday.
The committee cut several items from WISPIRG’s budget proposal, including airfare for organized training as well as funding for a WISPIRG fellow.
The SSFC also voted to lower WISPIRG’s membership fees. WISPIRG initially requested over $60,000 in membership fees from SSFC, but the committee lowered fees by around $8,000.
Last year, SSFC passed a resolution saying only $10,000 could go to membership fees, but the committee overturned the ruling Monday. SSFC Chair Sarah Neibart said overturning the ruling shows a shift in ideology between sessions of the committee.
“I think this is significant,” said Chair Sarah Neibart. “This shows a philosophical shift on what this session of SSFC thinks is appropriate to approve.”
Rep. Cale Plamann said he felt the lowered membership fees were reasonable.
“I think we cut out enough of the fat without hurting them,” said Plamann. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Rep. David Vines said while he thinks some overall budget cuts would be appropriate if they did not restrict WISPIRG’s staff development.
“If this hurts staff development, this could really end up being a less cost effective measure,” said Vines.
SSFC members also WISPIRG’s staff needs to be UW-Madison employees. The committee said they would remove $90,000 from WISPIRG’s budget if the group’s professional staff did not sign contracts with UW-Madison by the end of the fall semester.
Currently, some of the group’s professional staff are non-university employees.
