The Undergraduate Council took the first steps towards finalizing a budget for Optional Winter Activities Week last night, passing legislation through its Finance Committee to allot $20,000 towards student group funding for the final week of January Term. The legislation will come before the full UC on Sunday.

The $20,000 that the legislation plans to aside for OWAW programming comes from the approximately $376,000 budget that the UC expects to receive from the Student Activity Fee. This years’ estimated budget is on par with last year’s student activities budget, when the UC did not have to accommodate OWAW events.

Earlier this month, UC President Johnny F. Bowman ’11 had estimated that $15,000 would be set aside for OWAW funding, $5,000 less than the actual proposed budget. UC Vice President Eric N. Hysen ’11 said that the increase in the budget will give the UC more “wiggle room” when looking at applications, but he stressed that the UC will not necessarily use the entire budget.

“This was the maximum amount that I felt comfortable taking out of the grants fund while still meeting the needs of student groups who have good proposal ideas,” said Finance Committee Chair Luis A. Martinez ’12.

According to Hysen, no explicit cuts have been made from the budget to accommodate the reshuffling of funds, but he expects grants to decrease slightly in the beginning of the spring, as many of normal spring kick-off events will instead be held during the last week of January. But Martinez said that small chaneses in policy for term-time grants will provide much of the savings. For example, the UC will encourage student publications to move online while cutting printing grants in half.

At next week’s meeting, the committee will decide the policy guidelines for OWAW grants, which Martinez said would differ from term-time UC funding guidelines. For example, though the UC does not ordinarily fund travel outside the Boston area, Martinez said he hopes the UC will be able to subsidize travel for student groups during January. In addition, while only official student groups may apply for funding from the UC during the semester, individual students and unrecognized student groups will be eligible to use the new fund.

According to the legislation, the guidelines will be available by Oct. 1, and students and student groups will have until Nov. 7 to write proposals.

“We want a holistic idea of what the week will look like in its entirety before we make decisions,” Martinez said. “We want it to reflect the diversity of groups and the diversity of people on campus.”

—Staff writer Stephanie B. Garlock can be reached at sgarlock@college.harvard.edu.