In an intriguing twist to the ongoing saga surrounding student organizations, the Dean of Students Office announced last Friday it would finance a director’s position for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Center.

Funding a permanent staff member to head the LGBTCC through general public revenue (i.e. government money and tuition granted the university by the state of Wisconsin) will bring stability and consistent leadership for the university’s flagship organization for handling LGBT student issues. But what the headlines missed is that the LGBTCC already asked for a similar position to be funded through seg fees, a request that the Student Services Finance Committee denied.

Certainly, essential campus services should be funded through GPR funds over seg fees. Not only does this plan indicate a commitment by administrators, presumably administrators can control a budget better than the average student organization (whose budget has increased more than 300 percent in less than 10 years).

Clearly, the Dean of Students Office has determined that the services provided by the LGBTCC are too important to be left to the political whims of a supposedly “viewpoint-neutral” ASM. Unfortunately, by funding the director without taking ownership for the annual operating expenses, the Dean of Students Office didn’t go far enough.

If the university is serious about financing legitimate student services, it should go all the way. It may not be able to swallow up student organizations, but there is nothing to prevent administrators from permanently funding services as administrative units, making the seg-fee-funded services redundant and ineligible for further funding.

It should also cause ASM concern that the LGBTCC budget for 2003-‘04 was approved under the assumption that the director’s position would not exist. Now that it does exist, it seems reasonable that the LGBTCC should have to reapply for funding, given its new financial circumstances. This is an unlikely scenario, however; the system is designed to give organizations the funds they desire. There is no mechanism to deny them funding after the fact.

So while the new LGBTCC director is the first sign that the university is willing to invest directly in valuable student services, little has been done to address the pressing issue of exploding seg fees. This new paradigm, where student organizations get permanent staff through the university while continuing to ask for operating expenses and intern salaries from ASM will not solve the problem of skyrocketing seg fees. It will only make things worse.