Student organizations: Don’t get your hopes up.
Due to a “communication breakdown,” the Student Government Association funding allocations were incorrect-possibly as much as 23 percent too high, though the numbers are still in question.
To understand where the miscommunication occurred, it is necessary to understand the process of determining the available funds.
Every student will pay $30 per semester for the student activity fee. The Graduate and Professional Student Association takes 90 percent of its students’ fees and gives 10 percent back to the SGA, to distribute with the undergraduate fee.
The business office of the Division of Student Development provides SGA with a number representing the expected student activity fee revenue for the upcoming year. That number given to SGA should, according to SGA Vice President Dane Salazar, be the actual amount they have to distribute to student organizations, with the graduate and professional money already removed.
From this assumption, Salazar and the SGA Finance Committee accepted the amount they were given as the exact amount to be distributed and did not consider that there could have been a problem.
However, there was a problem-the graduate and professional students money had not been calculated out of the total.
During the week when the amount was given to SGA, Kevin Clark, the director of business for Student Development, was out of town on military duties. He instructed Janice Harris, financial coordinator for Student Development, on what she was to do.
Clark believes that there was some miscommunication about which number was to be given and what it represented.
“When I opened The U. News, the number [allocated by SGA] just stood out,” Clark said.
He immediately called a meeting with Salazar and Chris Avery, SGA financial vice president-elect.
Director of Student Life and SGA Moderator Phil Lyons explained, “On the negative side, it’s unfortunate that it happened. On the positive side, it’s great we noticed it. No one actually got their money and then had it taken back.
“It’s a faux pax for the division to have given that wrong number out,” Lyons said.
The exact allocations have yet to be determined and possible across-the-board cuts could be as high as 23 percent.
“Nothing is final yet,” Avery said. “It’s completely out of SGA’s hands.”
Avery and Salazar are remaining in contact with Clark, trying to determine the final allocations.
Avery explained that they will likely do a cut now and then; if the number of students enrolling is higher than planned, they will give additional money to groups or keep it in spot funding.
A letter will be sent to student organizations informing them of the situation and their current allocation.
However, there is some dispute about who will be informing the groups-SGA or Student Development. Despite this, most involved are trying not to pass blame.
“We could play the blame game, but that’s not going to get us anywhere,” said Avery.
SGA President-elect Mike Cappel said, “We should have realized it. We should have caught it.”
He referred to the fact that the allocation of $500,700 was more than double the allocation of $221,609 last year, while the student activity fee only increased from $38 to $60.
“We expected the increase to provide this nice cushion,” Cappel said. “We still don’t have adequate funding.”
With the problems encountered when removing graduate and professional student funding, the issue of how much they give back to SGA is being reconsidered.
“In the future, I would like to see graduate students give more than 10 percent back to SGA,” Cappel said. He noted that he saw many graduate students at Spring Fever.
In addition, Cappel questioned how the Graduate and Professional Student Association spends their money.
“We have no way to audit them-we just give them their money,” he said.
During his presidency, Cappel plans to work with the GPSA to determine if the 10 percent is an equitable contribution.
