The SGA legislature doled out a total of about $25,000 in additional funding to three student groups in the last round of appeals last night after hearing cases from nine groups dissatisfied with their initial allotments.

After almost half of the $50,000 in group funding that was requested from the legislature yesterday was granted — $20,000 of which was given solely to MaryPIRG to fund a non-student position in their organization — only about $5,000 was left for student group emergency funding next semester. Emergency aid, or “group help” as it is called in the Student Government Association, is given to student groups struggling to stay afloat or new groups that are formed early in the academic year.

“Group help is in danger, and honestly, we’re trying to figure out how to take the money away from PIRG,” freshman legislator and finance committee member Zach Cohen called out in the middle of a heated debate last night. Cohen later apologized to the legislature for his outburst.

Yesterday’s last-ditch appeals marked the end of the financial process for student groups, during which the SGA Finance Committee was faced with more than $2.4 million in requests — about twice the amount the SGA has to give out. About $1.2 million was given to student groups in the first round of funding earlier this month, which included subsidies for travel and airfare for the first time.

MaryPIRG’s request for salary money for a non-student position was supported by more than 1,900 students who voted “yes” on the referendum featured on the SGA election ballot last week. But the request only passed the legislature by one vote in a 15-14 break after a high-intensity debate that took up about half of the 10-hour meeting.

Although the finance committee had already granted the request for MaryPIRG’s campus coordinator salary, the additional $20,000 will go toward half the salary of its state director. Both positions would be filled by non-students.

Many legislators questioned why such a large sum of money should go to a person students have little access to and whose primary job is to lobby student issues in Annapolis, while SGA President Steve Glickman questioned MaryPIRG’s accountability in representing the entire student body when lobbying.

“I have to question when they go in and represent the student body — how do they represent them? It’s the 50 or so people who want to advocate on behalf of the students on student issues,” Glickman said. “The fact that we aren’t able to go in and check that MaryPIRG is advocating on something we would like them to advocate on behalf of — that kind of bothers me.”

Others praised the work of MaryPIRG, urging legislators to see them as “professional lobbyists.”

Groups whose appeals were denied didn’t receive their requests mostly because legislators didn’t want to make unfair exceptions to across-the-board cuts initially imposed by the Finance Committee, according to SGA Vice President Andrew Steinberg.

While some legislators debated the merit of groups’ requests, Steinberg and others insisted on continuing to use neutrality in assessing the appeals, most of which asked for money that had been cut across-the-board for all groups.

“We can’t just spend money because we have it,” said Lisa Crisalli, South Campus Commons legislator and finance committee member. “It sounds like giving a child a cookie because they asked you 20 times.”

Appeals from groups such as Best Buddies, the Satanic Mechanics Theater Company, Feminism Without Borders, the Intelligence Community Club, the Homecoming Committee and the men’s water polo team — the team’s representatives, including SGA legislators Ian Winchester and Michael Schwartz, dropped their pants to display Speedos during their appeal to the legislature — were denied.

Appeals from the Iranian Students’ Foundation and the university chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, for $2,300 each, were approved.

aisaacs@umdbk.com