With the current semester coming to a close, the Student Finance Committee (SFC), a standing committee of the Associated Students of NMU (ASNMU), is hoping for groups on campus to submit proposals for funding events in the upcoming fall 2010 semester.

“We haven’t had anyone ask for money next semester,” said Mitch Foster, a junior political science major and chair of the SFC. “(Student organizations) have an opportunity to present us with requests for money, but no one has taken the initiative yet.”

The SFC is a student run organization responsible for approving the distribution of some of the money from the Student Activity Fee to different organizations on campus. At the beginning of the current semester, the group had approximately $120,000 to allocate, $43,000 went unspent in the Fall Semester budget.

The North Wind, Radio X and the ASNMU are direct allocation groups and they receive money from the student activity fee directly every semester without having to be approved by the SFC. Other groups such as First Aid Productions, Campus Cinema and Gonzo Media are considered earmark funded groups (EFGs), and don’t have to go through the process of getting a proposal approved by the SFC.

Every student organization that qualifies as an EFG is reviewed by the SFC every semester to ensure they are using students’ money efficiently on campus, Foster said.

“(EFGs), like First Aid Productions, are using students’ money to put on several events for them a year,” he said.

Foster said that the determining factor for student organization submitting proposals to the SFC is that the groups need to prove that there are enough students on campus that are support the proposed event, which was the reason the SFC chose to approve funding for the Upcoming Ted Nugent “Kill it and Grill it” event.

“The College Republicans came with a really good presentation and proof that the students wanted to see Ted Nugent at NMU,” he said. “We are not a sneaky group of people that bring our own personal agendas into the mix.”

The SFC is currently made up of seven voting members and the chair of the committee. There is one open position that the group is looking to fill since the resignation of former SFC chair, Andrew Foster.