The Student Senate will vote on the Programs Finance Committee’s total budget for the 2008-09 year Wednesday during the final meeting of winter term.
The Senate will also vote on the Athletic Department Finance Committee’s budget and any remaining surplus requests. The Senate has set aside 45 minutes for public testimony on the PFC budget.
As it stands now, the PFC’s total budget will be more than $4.5 million. It will increase 3.77 percent over last year, or roughly $164,000. This figure does not take into account the Student Recreation Center’s about $1.1 million allocation that was part of last year’s budget.
There are likely to be a few other complicated points of contention during the hearing.
If funding for the Career Center, which was absorbed by the University, had been included in the final PFC budget, the budget would have increased $800 more than senators approved in October.
PFC Chairman Jacob Brennan said the committee is only over budget because of health insurance benefits for a new Graduate Teaching Fellow position for the Men’s Center. The University may take on those costs as well, but a decision will not be made until mid-March, ASUO Programs Coordinator Liora Sponko said.
The benefit will cost more than $14,000, Sponko said.
The PFC budget includes a $25 per month raise for associate justices of the ASUO Constitution Court, which Brennan and Sen. Billy Hatch said would cause the most debate.
Hatch said he opposed the raise because the court is not accessible to the public and others in the ASUO are not asking for raises. The court was denied increases in stipend pay by last year’s Senate.
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