Veishea Inc.’s initial funding request for Veishea 2009 from the Government of the Student Body’s regular allocations process was cut to $47,354.68 on Thursday, three times more than the $15,000 given to Veishea for 2008.

The budget was reduced from the original $84,658.68 by 56 percent.

The budget cuts were taken from funding for televising the parade as well as stages, sound, printing, grills and tents.

Reductions from the budget started off slowly, as many GSB finance committee members were hesitant to look over such a large budget.

Taleen Brady, GSB senator, finance committee member and senior in psycology, started by initiating large cuts.

“Clearly, you have a big budget; you should have a big budget,” she said.

Kyle Peterson, general co-chairman of the Veishea committee and junior in marketing, and Jason Owen, Veishea business manager and senior in finance, said of all their line items, safety and lighting were their highest priorities.

“Things that we are interested in [being funded for] are things like safety [and] lighting,” Owens said. “Private donations don’t want to put their name on sponsoring security.”

Based on that statement, the finance committee voted 7-0 to cut funding for stages and sound, due to low priority.

The finance committee also voted 7-0 to cut funding for televising the Veishea parade, after some discussion.

Tom Danielson, vice-chairman of the finance committee and senior in civil engineering, said the GSB senate discretionary account would be a better place to ask for funding for the parade.

“I think it’s a great thing that it is televised. I don’t know if it’s a good use of student fee money,” he said. “The students of Iowa State are going to be here watching it live.”

There was a small debate in the hearing when the finance committee requested that the Veishea committee reduce its request for 15 tents that was a big part of the budget.

Gail Ferlazzo, Veishea committee adviser and associate director of the Memorial Union, said the tents would be more important next year due to the time of year Veishea will be held.

“Veishea next year is one week earlier than this year,” she said. “We do probably have a likelihood of inclement weather next year.”

Finance committee member Anthony Maly, sophomore in political science, offered a compromise of funding eight tents instead of the initial 15.

“I’m all about making compromises, so I’m wondering if this will work out for the both of us,” he said.

The compromise passed by a vote of 5-2 in favor of allocating $8,000 for the eight tents.

The finance committee also voted 4-3 to remove a line in the budget allocating $200 to be spent on repairs on computers if needed, because the money was not specified for a specific item.

The committee also voted 7-0 to reduce the money allocated for printing costs from $240 to $160, and again to cut allocating $1,000 to rent grills for barbecues.

The Veishea committee will also be at the GSB finance committee’s budget balancing session Monday in order to be present for any additional cuts in its budget for regular allocations.