Associated Students Finance Board emptied its coffers completely at its final meeting of the year Monday, appropriating a total of $2,081.24 for student groups.
Board chair Fernando Ramirez announced that he added the $1,000 set aside for cultural graduations back into the board’s unallocated budget. Of the five student organizations that requested funding at the meeting, only Hermanas Unidas’ request was denied.
Despite being the last organization to receive funding, the Office of State Affairs received the most money from Finance Board. Organizing director Lance Tackett received $731.24 to help cover transportation costs for approximately 50 students to attend a Sacramento conference and protest next year’s student fee hikes and budget cuts.
Organizers of the Lavendar Graduation, the last of the alternative graduation committees to request money this quarter, received the predetermined amount of $500 for their fifth annual graduation ceremony. The ceremony will also feature an awards banquet honoring the achievements of graduating queer students.
Mujeres Unidas por Juisticia Educacion y Revolucion (MUJER) was also granted $500 for an upcoming conference focusing on the rights of women, particularly women of color, in the United States. The conference will offer workshops and a panel of five women from different backgrounds, and will be open to high school students as well as UCSB students and local residents.
One of the groups at the meeting announced that it planned to resurrect La Voz del Congreso, a newsletter for campus activist organization El Congreso. The newsletter has been defunct for the past three years, but representative Jessica Lozano said members of El Congreso decided they wanted to once again begin providing students with a source of alternative media. Finance Board voted to give the group $300, enough to cover startup and some printing costs for the newsletter.
Hermanas Unidas requested $500 to help fund the group’s first-ever graduation reception, which may be held after the Chicano/Latino Graduation Ceremony. Several board members said they were concerned that the event would be too exclusive, as it is open only to members of Hermanas Unidas. The board voted 8-1, with three abstentions, not to allocate money to the group.
The Excursion Club, which was not one of the organizations on the agenda, asked the board to consider granting it money for camping equipment to be used for summer outreach. None of the board members motioned to add the request to the agenda.
At the end of the meeting, Mary Hunt, the board’s administrative analyst, congratulated Ramirez and vice chair Patrice Rooks for their efforts to make the board run smoothly.
“Fernando and Patrice did an excellent job,” Hunt said. “They really kept it together.”
Ramirez said he was glad to have had the opportunity to participate in Finance Board.
“It was a good experience,” Ramirez said. “It gives you an interesting perspective about how A.S. finance works.”