Every year the Student Finance Committee is faced with the task of dividing a budget of about $300,000 among student organizations that request over $3,000,000.
Recent abuses of SFC policy and the alleged misuse of funds have compounded the difficulty of overseeing how organizations spend and receive money. This year, new measures are being taken to ensure efficiency in the allocation process. These measures include schedule changes and the creation of a new liaison position to help organizations curtail overspending.
Given the limited resources of SFC and the large demand for funding from student organizations, Student Treasurer and senior Jessica Marish has emphasized that organizations be more careful in how they spend their money and more conservative in how much funding they request. Overstatement of budgets has been a common problem, since organizations know they will inevitably receive only about 10 percent of the amount they request from SFC. Additionally, because groups are required to return all funding left unused at the end of the semester, it is alleged that groups misuse funds, “before they are gone.”
Questions have recently been voiced about how SFC funds, taken from the communal pot of student activity fees, are being spent. Allegations have surfaced that campus groups are using funds for everything from parties for their friends to paying themselves for their work. One group paid two student members upwards of $500 for their on-campus work.
“Even if it is going by the books it is unethical to some degree. People trust them and they are not really doing what their charter says.” Marish said. Spending that doesn’t adhere to an organization’s charter, while theoretically held in check by the requirement of organization advisor signatures and review by SFC committee members, often goes unnoticed. This lack of oversight is due to the sheer volume of paperwork SFC deals with, and in at least one case, forgery of an advisor’s signature.
“Groups with great goals wrote budgets and those dollars languished unused,” former Committee member Aaron Leavy (OC ’01) said. Overconfidence when budgeting has been a persistent problem, Leavy explained.
“Fatigue can make it difficult to catch small addition errors, and it can make it daunting to have full and complete debates because people’s stamina wears down,” Leavy said.
Every year committee members face the enormous task of sifting through budget proposals and deciding how the money brought in by the student activity fee, SFC’s only source of funding, should be distributed. Committee members are forced to make important decisions in a short amount of time.
Senior Bryan Engelhardt has been chosen to act as the newly established liaison between SFC and student organizations. Engelhardt will monitor organizations’ spending and work closely on budget planning with those organizations at risk of bankruptcy to help them avoid overspending.
Marish hopes that procedural changes will improve the allocation process. Allocation planning has been shifted to two months earlier in the year, when committee members are not as busy with schoolwork, and will take place during a weekend retreat so committee members will be free from distraction during the day-long process of determining the distribution of funds.
While changes in the allocation process may reduce stress on committee members, not all student organizations are pleased. “It’s much harder to figure out what we’re going to do next year now than at the end of the year,” Socialist Alternative member Ted Virdone said.
“Students need to hold student groups accountable,” Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith said, agreeing with Engelhardt and Marish that changes in policy and procedure at SFC can only go so far to ensure equitable allocation and use of funds. All three have also advocated more careful monitoring of general spending in addition to more conscientious spending by student organizations themselves.