The Student Services Finance Committee appointed new members to the Student Transportation Board and Student Activity Center Governing Board in a meeting Monday, which could mean future negotiations about bringing back the recently defunded SAFECab service.
Rep. David Vines, who SSFC appointed to the Student Transportation Board, said he would try to bring back SAFECab, the free late-night cab service for students that was defunded earlier this year.
The Student Transportation Board is responsible for negotiating with the Madison Metro Transit System over how much it will charge the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus transportation services, while the SAC GB allocates space to student organizations in the Student Activity Center.
SSFC appointed Tito Diaz to serve on SAC GB, who said he anticipated his appointment to the position, said he has already set up meetings with Student Activity Center members in order to get a head start on this year’s work.
SSFC Chair Ellie Bruecker said the appointees’ prior SSFC experience is important because their training will bring a unique perspective to the boards’ processeses.
“For the Student Transportation Board, it’s really helpful to have the financial perspective and the seg[regated] fee perspective there,” Bruecker said. “They have students on the board that are looking from the transportation side of things and then SSFC members come in and look at it from the seg[regated] fee side of things.”
Bruecker said the SAC GB position is similar to the Student Transportation Board because both are funded through student segregated fees and decisions must be made in a viewpoint neutral manner, a policy SSFC also follows when funding campus organizations.
Viewpoint neutrality requires a committee not take into account the beliefs or mission of any student group when making funding decisions.
Bruecker said she was confident that both Vines and Diaz would be a good fit for their respective roles because of theVir previous experience and work on SSFC.
“The Student Transportation Board negotiations are going to take somebody that’s going to dedicate a lot of time to that and I think [Vines] will do that,” said Bruecker. “And the SAC GB works with a lot of student organizations and that’s something that [Tito] is very strong in.”
SSFC will begin eligibility hearings for student organization funding in their next meeting on Thursday.
—Cheyenne Langkamp contributed to this article.
