Bill to fund student organizations passes
Student Senate overruled Student Body President Joe Wright’s veto of its fall allocations bill Wednesday night, citing, among other reasons, a lack of time available in the rest of the semester to draft a new one.
The bill, which was passed into law by a 24 to seven majority, will dole out a combined $96,196 to 70 student organizations for the upcoming semester.
Both sides acknowledged flaws in the allocation process but disagreed upon how they should be fixed. Debates arose specifically over whether student organizations that don’t utilize allotted funds should be penalized with reduced funding in the future. Wright’s veto was based on the argument that more historical data should be incorporated into the process, and those organizations that have not spent the money allocated to them in the past should receive less than those that have. He said in the past year, up to 40 percent – almost $81,000 – of allotted funds went unused.
Sen. Coy Gibson, chairman of the Senate finance committee argued that historical data had been taken into account in funding organizations’ events, rather than in funding organizations as a whole.
He also cited the fact that 70 percent of campus groups have leadership transitions in the spring, and said punishing new student leaders for any fiscal mismanagement by their predecessors would be unfair.
Gibson’s third contention, shared by many in the Senate, was that the finance committee had spent 27 hours formulating the budget and it would be unrealistic to throw out the entire budget and try to approve a new one in the short amount of time remaining in the semester.
“We share a common goal,” Gibson said. “We both want the total funding to be increased. More student organizations are applying and more have requested funding. We want to talk; we want to start the conversation. We’re headed in a good direction with redistributed funding and receipt deadlines.”
Wright agreed that, though his veto was overruled, the fact that the allocation process will be examined further was a step in the right direction.
“We need to make sure student organizations are spending their money,” Wright said. “My long-term goals were not sustained in the veto, but I think, ultimately, they will be.”
Wright said he knew the timeline was tight and wasn’t sure whether the veto would be sustained, but that he would have been prepared to work with the finance committee to draft a new budget if necessary. He said there are several questions that now need answering — chiefly, how to incentivize spending of funding allocated.
“We need to quantify the reasoning for allocating that money,” he said.
Student Body Treasurer Emily Supil, who voted to overrule Wright’s veto, said her main goal was to ensure a budget was passed before the end of the semester so all organizations would not risk losing the funding.
“I just wanted to make sure student organizations got their funding,” Supil said.
All told, a record 92 organizations requested $355,000 in this year’s first funding session, but SG only gives out about $185,000 annually from student activity fees to student organizations.