With former ASM chair Austin Evans’ ludicrous suit challenging the student body’s elections now a thing of the past, Brad Vogel and Jennie Johnson have taken their hard-won seats on the Student Services Finance Committee (SSFC).

Both markedly intelligent student leaders with an appreciably charismatic yet disciplined approach to the budget process, this newly elected duo promises to round out a fabulously eclectic committee that has worked hard to fairly and equitably treat a myriad of proposed student organization budgets to date.

As the middle of the semester casually passes and SSFC continues to meet every Monday and Thursday evening, however, it should be noted that certain members of the student budgetary committee have begun to settle into counter-productive, irresponsible molds of reckless spending allowance, while others work hard to keep a necessary discipline about the committee.

Before launching into criticism of select SSFC members, it should be noted that the positives truly do outweigh the negatives. Committee Chair Janell Wise has presided over deliberations in a most deft manner. She has kept a leash sufficiently tight on committee members so as to encourage the sort of free-flowing debate that is wholly necessary to an honest process, while also not hesitating to use her proverbial gavel to rein members in on occasion.

Moreover, Vice-Chair Kevin Otten and ASM Finance Chair Barb Kiernoziak have taken it upon themselves to provide firm leadership for SSFC during the debate sessions in which Ms. Wise is not permitted to participate fully. Each has shown a ruthless financial discipline for which the entire student body ought to be supremely grateful, as Ms. Kiernoziak and Mr. Otten introduce budget amendment upon budget amendment that eliminates pork while working to keep student segregated fees at reasonable levels.

And while I have taken issue with the entire concept of segregated fees in the past — and still do — the reality is that it is a system alive and well on the University of Wisconsin campus, and therefore students’ short-term interests are best served by the sort of SSFC members like Mr. Otten and Ms. Kiernoziak, who happily provide organizations with sufficient operational funding and not a dollar more.

To be sure, there are other committee members who, though less outspoken than Mr. Otten and Ms. Kiernoziak, have shown a dedication to fiscal discipline through their debate, occasional amendments and robust voting records. This list of laudable members, each free-thinkers with a true devotion to balancing the needs of student organizations versus the financial strain on students, includes — but surely isn’t limited to — Erica Christenson, Eric Saar, Rachelle Stone and Catherine Quinn.

The problem lies within the philosophies and troublesome voting records of other committee members. Perhaps most reprehensible of all is Salem Zewdie, a free-spender who seems petrified of following through with the grittier portion of her job and telling student groups that not all their requested expenditures are acceptable. Moreover, she appears to fail to see where it is wholly appropriate for the members of SSFC to question outright the necessity of certain proposed student organization events and, when circumstances warrant, exercise a line-item veto via the power of the purse.

Indeed, as Ms. Zewdie has become increasingly outspoken at meetings of late, it has become apparent that she seeks to operate with a stamp more rubber-latent than the Sex Out Loud budget, and her vote has become an outright danger to students’ wallets.

Also troubling are committee members Henry Gomez and Adriana Barboza. Mr. Gomez, simply put, seems to have lost touch with the fact that he is not playing with Monopoly money anymore. While each of his votes is sincere and his dedication unquestionable, the purely liberal nature with which he has happily dispersed funds to groups is wholly troubling at best.

And Ms. Barboza does little better, having recently allowed herself to be lobbied outright by a student organization while still sitting at the committee’s deliberative table. The question of whether she speaks for herself and the students she represents, or the student organization leaders who appear to have zeroed in on her, now seems legitimate. Even in Washington, D.C., a city notorious for high-powered lobbyists, it would seem that no Senator has ever actually allowed once such special interest-representative to chatter with them while voting on the Senate floor; but with Ms. Barboza the analogy fails and our student government somehow continues to creep toward becoming the absolute antithesis of Capra-dom.

(At the time of this column’s writing, sources had informed The Badger Herald that Ms. Barboza could either resign or face involuntary removal from the committee at its Monday evening session for reasons largely unique from those discussed above. This would come as a most welcome move.)

To be sure, everyone on SSFC, even those aforementioned targets of criticism, has shown a genuine commitment to his or her work. Mr. Vogel and Ms. Johnson enter a committee full of hard-working, intelligent minds. But as the student body begins to inch toward the end of its work and continues to take up serious matters — including a potential re-examination of the MultiCultural Student Coalition budget on the table at the time of this column’s writing — it is increasingly crucial that each committee member bear in mind their responsibility to tend to students’ wallets, not just groups’ wants. If the committee can achieve this nirvanic balance, it truly will become the shining star of ASM.

Mac VerStandig ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in rhetoric.