Three campus publications have been hit by Government of the Student Body officials with possible funding cuts in their 1997-98 budgets.

At Wednesday night’s GSB meeting, the Senate voted to send back three funding recommendations. Two of the organizations were student publications — The Drummer and ethos Magazine.

Also facing a possible decrease in funding is the Iowa State Daily. The Senate will vote next week on whether to approve the Finance Committee’s recommendation to decrease the Daily’s funding by about $14,000. Last year, the Daily received $89,000 in GSB money. The 1997-98 recommendation is about $75,000.

Senators voted to send the recommendation for The Drummer back to the Finance Committee for an increase.

The Drummer requested about $13,000, but the Finance Committee’s recommendation to the Senate was about $7,500.

Rob Ruminski, LAS, made the motion. “The Drummer has served Iowa State well, and it deserves better treatment than what it received,” Ruminski said.

Todd Swanson, director of finance, agreed. Swanson encouraged senators to send The Drummer back for an increase because he said members of The Drummer had new information they wanted to present to the Finance Committee.

The money allocated for ethos Magazine, which represented an increase over last year’s funding, was also debated by senators. Rory Flaherty, off-campus, moved to send ethos back for a decrease in funds. He said the magazine provided much of the same information as the Daily, calling ethos “a duplication of services.”

“How many students actually read ethos?” Flaherty asked.

John Hamilton, business, said it would be more convenient to send ethos back to the committee for a decrease than any other organization because of its relatively large allocation. The magazine was allocated about $42,000.

Flaherty’s motion passed on a 17-9 vote.

Chris Miller, editor of the Daily, said it is troubling that most ISU student publications are running into similar problems with GSB allocations. “I think student publications are vital to any campus, and I would ask that the senators take a hard look at the services they provide,” Miller said.

Miller said he hopes senators are not basing their funding decisions solely on possible disagreements with the content of a student publication. “I don’t know if it’s happening, but I would hope not,” he said.

John Hobson, chairman of the Daily’s Publication Board, said the cutbacks will affect next year’s Daily. “I imagine it will be a noticeable difference,” he said. “It’s just: Where do we want the noticeable differences at?”

Hobson said the senators are unfairly targeting student publications, and they should be more informed about the informational role of publications on campus.

All remaining student organization allocations were approved for 1997-98.