UW-Eau Claire’s Student Senate passed its annual budget Monday night, in which $2.5 million of student segregated fees were allocated, according to an article in Thursday’s edition of The Spectator.

Discussion of whether to distribute funds to The Flip Side, a fortnightly publication currently affiliated with the Progressive Student’s Association, took nearly four hours, while little debate occurred regarding the funding of other institutions, according to the article. In the end, Senate voted to allocate $403 to the publication, although Senate’s Finance Commission had denied its funding twice last semester.

The final decision regarding The Flip Side’s funding shows a fundamental flaw in this year’s Student Senate. While Senate discussed The Flip Side’s funding for nearly the entire meeting, it spent little time on other fractions of the budget. For example, what ended as a $403 decision took more time than the over half-million dollar allocation to the Athletics Department.

Furthermore, Student Senate’s Finance Commission denied its funding twice, yet the Senate as a whole didn’t trust those decisions and allowed members of The Flip Side to manipulate it out of money. By doing so, Senate has sent a message that any organization, regardless of whether or not its proven itself as a credible and viable organization, can get student segregated fees if persistent.

With Student Senate elections beginning Feb. 28, there are speculations that senators would rather avoid bad press in The Flip Side than follow their own commission’s recommendations.

Allocating the budget is Student Senate’s biggest task of the year, and it seems they’ve chosen to secure their own positions over doing what is best for Eau Claire’s student body.