By KELLEY DUNN, SEAN WORLEY, JONATHAN ERNST and KRISTEN MIANO

After weeks of meetings and long nights of discussion, the Student Government Association’s Finance Committee released the Chartered Student Organization budgets for the 2010-2011 academic year. Not every CSO, however, was pleased with its allotted funding, which led to 15 appeals.

The first group to appeal was Great Issues Committee. The committee requested an extra $1,000 for funding that the group would use to host a meal with the speaker.

Newly appointed Financial Vice President Tim Janczewski said that the funds were cut because the dinner was classified as an “internal social event,” and the funds were cut for similar events for all CSOs.

GIC Chair-elect Colin Shevlin said that, because the dinner is often in the contract of the speaker, it should be viewed as a cost of putting on the event, rather than an internal social event. No one amended the bill, so GIC did not get the extra funds.

The next group to go for funding was SLU-TV, which was requesting more money to fund a new server, a new camera, three flip cameras to loan out to students, a Macbook Pro laptop to replace two older computers, memory chip readers and memory cards.

The first amendment was to raise the group’s funding to include all of the new requests, with the exception of the new server and power supply. That amendment was voted down by two votes.

The second amendment was to raise the funding to include the flip cameras, memory chip readers and memory cards, which failed by one vote.

Ultimately, the group was awarded extra money for the new laptop, in addition to the funds Finance Committee allocated to it.

The amendment to give SLU-TV an additional $700 for new cameras failed with only 16 senators in favor. In the end, SLU-TV’s appeal ended with the group being given $8,635.

Next was KSLU’s appeal. The radio station wanted additional money to cover the costs of a new CD rack, payment for training and broadcasting with KDHX radio station, and payment for the costs of its annual trip to Manhattan for a radio broadcasting conference.

Janczewski said that SGA could not fund the request for more money for the conference because of the recently instated guideline that no CSO would be allotted more than $2,500 for conference trips.

Kyle Sennish, general manager for KSLU, pointed out that they had not been notified of this guideline until a week after the budget was due.

“This is vital to KSLU,” Sennish said. “We have gone to this conference for the last 14 years. Students cover part of the costs on top of the funding.”

KSLU members also explained that their partnership with KDHX provides them valuable experience they can’t get at SLU, but they need the extra money to secure the promising future they have with the radio station.

After some deliberation about how to cut the costs of a conference in Manhattan and the value of the conference, the Senate voted to give KSLU $5,765.

Up next was the appeal for Rainbow Alliance. RA was up to try to get more funding for the All Of Us Campaign poster event, more decorating money for HomOcoming and $1,000 for a Safe Zone training retreat.

RA said it needed more money for the All of Us Campaign to create better quality posters, arguing that the amount of money allotted as of now would not be enough to effectively accomplish what they want to with this poster campaign.

“One of the goals of the All of Us Campaign is to act as encouragement for those not out to come out,” Thomas Bloom, RA’s president elect, said. “The additional costs will make the posters more prominent.”

Janczewski argued that most student groups don’t exceed $250 with their poster events, and that the $500 that RA was asking for was too much of a burden on the activity fee. Some thought that the result of $500 worth of posters would be advertising overkill.

In the end, however, the vote gave RA the extra $250 it needed, raising the budget to $7,030.

Despite RA pointing out that the $30 in years past had not been nearly enough for HomOcoming decorations and the rest of the fees had come out of member’s pockets, SGA voted not to give RA $300 for this component.

Finally, SGA looked at the issue of the Safe Zone Training Retreat. SGA originally gave RA no money for the retreat, but they were appealing for $1,000. The members of RA argued that the training for Safe Zone was what the organization was all about, and would create more good in the long run. The Senate voted to give them the extra $1,000, leaving the final amount at $8,060.

The next group up for appeal was the SLU Karate Club that was awarded an extra $80 after their proposal for pine wood boards was denied.

“We couldn’t justify the cost of it, we stopped funding balls because the student activity fee could be used for better things,” Janczewski said.

Psi Chi, the National Honor Society for Psychology majors, presented its appeal for an extra $300 to fund undergraduate psychology research. Psi Chi President Justin Purl pointed out that such research would “increase the prestige of this University.”

The Senate quickly asked about the role of the psychology department in funding undergraduate research. Purl said that the psychology department only funds graduate research endeavors, and has been unable to provide funds for undergraduate research. Psi Chi’s appeal was not passed, and it received the original $2,500 for annual funding.

“The finance committee made good and tough decisions. If we had more money this would be good to fund,” Andrew Miller, SGA vice president of Internal Affairs, said. “Given the needs to balance the budget, I can’t justify amending up.”

Next, the Hindu Students Community was then awarded an extra $800 to provide lunch for Gandhi Service Day. Janczewski quickly shot down the appeal.

“You can do service without getting fed,” he said.

The amendment to allocate extra funds originally failed, and then further debate ensued.

“I don’t see how this is any different than [Alpha Phi Omega], we should be giving money based on the merits of the event,” John Cook School of Business Senator Samantha Morr said.

“It is not fair to say we are cutting this because we need to balance the budget,” Morr said.

The group was awarded $6,250 after the amendment was passed. After a short two-minute stretch, the International Student Federation was allocated $1,030 for more transportation of international students around St. Louis.

The Annual Funding meeting for SGA continued with an appeal made by Una. The feminism-based CSO made appeals for funds to be allocated for poster production costs, production of sexual assault emergency cards, an event programming costs, two speakers and also one conference.

In defense of their request for funds in order to program the annual Love Your Body Day, Core Team member Lauren Araujo explained that the group wants to put on light-hearted events alongside its awareness efforts.

“Sometimes Una doesn’t want to be viewed as the angry feminist on campus,” Araujo said.

The funding appeal for the event was focused on offering free massages for SLU students.

SGA presented four amendments to the CSO’s appeal. All but one failed. The group ended up being allocated an extra $75 for the production of sexual assault emergency cards.

Though amendments were created which revolved around poster costs, event programming and speaker money, SGA senators did not present an amendment to address Una’s appeal for funds to be allocated toward conference costs. Una ended up receiving slightly more than $1,000 less than their previous year’s budget.

The Asian American Association also appealed its annual funding recommendation and was successful in arguing for an additional $1,040.57. This amount will be put toward travel costs for students to attend the annual Midwestern Asian-American Student Union Conference.

The service oriented CSO Alpha Phi Omega appealed its annual funding recommendation and easily won after its request for $658 in travel costs was deemed a “friendly” amendment by newly appointed Financial VP, Tim Janczewski.

There were three amendments proposing more money for Black Student Alliance, all of which failed, though Morr encouraged the group to appeal at next week’s meeting, when more senators would be in attendance.

The final group of the night, capping the nine-and-a-half-hour long meeting, was Habitat for Humanity. The group wanted money for a conference that Finance Committee didn’t see as a “specific need” for the group. Morr amended the funding to include $2,500—enough for the conference—which passed, ending the meeting at 2:30 a.m.