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Madison House plan sets rate of defunding

After almost three years of negotiations, hassles and headaches, Student Council and Madison House have hammered out an agreement stipulating how much Student Activity Fee funding the community service organization will receive over the next nine years.

The agreement is "the best deal Student Council can work out with Madison House," said Council Chief Financial Officer John Finley, who presented the proposal to Council Tuesday night. Council will vote on the proposal next Tuesday.

The proposal outlines a 10-year plan to wean Madison House, the University's largest community service organization, from the SAF fund.

Under the proposal, Madison House would receive an agreed-upon amount of money each spring, beginning with $52,000 next semester, which is $7,000 more than they received last year.

The amount then will be reduced by 5 percent each year until 2008, when Madison House will stop receiving funding.

The proposal replaces a resolution passed by Council last October that stated Madison House would stop receiving SAF monies in 10 years but did not present a formal plan to move them toward self-sufficiency.

The Madison House Board of Directors unanimously approved the plan last Tuesday.

"The Board of Directors felt the resolution was definitely in the long-term interests of Madison House," Board of Directors Co-Chair David Katz said.

William W. Harmon, vice president for student affairs, asked Council executive board members in September to try to find a new way to allocate funds to Madison House each year.

"Vice President Harmon was very upset with the way things went last spring," Finley said.

Madison House appealed their initial Committee allocation to Council last spring, but Council upheld the decision and allocated $36,247.77.

Madison House then appealed that decision to the Student Activities Committee and received their original request of $44,857.

Finley said he hoped the new system would make Madison House's funding process less confrontational.

Council President Taz Turner, who negotiated the agreement along with Finley, agreed the proposal may help eliminate tensions between Council and Madison House.

"Because we came to a compromise, we should have eliminated the quarrels that arise every year during the appropriations process," Turner said.

Jamey Thompson, Council vice president for organizations, said he supports the proposal.

Thompson, who is in charge of the appropriations process, said he feels the resolution will "garner full support from the representative body, especially in light of support from Council officers, Madison House and the administration."

Madison House's funding became an issue in the spring of 1998, when the Appropriations Committee granted the organization a zero allocation, meaning the group would not receive any SAF funding for the following year.

Council restored the funding when Madison House appealed the Committee's decision.

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