The Student Association Senate approved three supplemental funding requests at its Sunday meeting.

The three requests, which totaled $20,920, have used two-thirds of the SA’s original funds for supplemental funding.

Speaker Robert Batey said the SA has $4,680 left to distribute to student organizations in supplemental funding for the rest of the 2007-08 academic year.

Supplemental funds are additional funds the SA gives to organizations if an emergency situation arises. Only $30,000 is available at the beginning of the school year.

The most expensive request came from Campus Child Care, which requested $17,420 to pay its student workers.

Batey said the service had not budgeted for the increase in minimum wage last year and that approving the supplemental funding was essential.

“They can’t actually maintain staff and maintain functioning without this $17,420,” Batey said. Campus Child Care’s budget shortfall was first reported in a Feb. 8 Northern Star article.

Another request came from Event Production Services, a student service that helps out with general events on campus, Batey said. The service requested money to pay for staff training and laser printers for wrist bands.

“They asked for $13,225; however, after finance committee reviewed this, and considered what we had in our overall general reserve, we felt that $2,000 is what we had available,” Batey said.

The last request came from NIU’s Paintball Club, which requested $4,000 to participate in a national competition in Lakeland, Fla.

However, the SA finance committee reduced the request to $1,500. Club representative David Moore said the reduced amount increases their difficulty to attend the conference.

“It will be a struggle to find people,” Moore said. The club, Moore said, would have sent six players originally, but may have to send only five now.

Sen. Cameron Harmon motioned to increase the allocated amount to $2,000, but this motion was not passed.

In addition to the three supplemental funding requests, the meeting was also notable because of the appearance of SA Chief Justice Craig Marcus.

Marcus said that three students – Robert Pagel, mechanical engineering major Kevin Mills and public health major Asa Young – applied to become justices. However, no action was taken because none of the nominees were in attendance.

Undeclared business major Ryan Soucy and marketing major Robert Barbaglia were also set to be appointed senators, but they were not appointed due to their absence from the meeting.