At last week’s Student Government Association meeting, the senate passed a bill correcting the chartered student organization budget oversight from last semester. It officially placed in the books the correct amount of funds each of the CSOs are to receive from the increased student activity fee. The error occurred when the original figure failed to deduct the graduate students’ contribution to the activity fund.
Chris Avery, SGA financial vice president, when asked about the bill and the final allocations said, “A mistake was made, and Janice Harris (financial coordinator for Student Development) and I made sure the change was equitable and fair for all organizations and students.”
The original figure of $500,700 was scaled back across the board by 27.6 percent, to its current total allocation of $362,507.
Although the budget cut was the same for every organization, each student group is feeling the loss of funds and budget shuffling differently. Amnesty International was originally given $2,000 for the year, but is left with $1,486 after the cut.
Amnesty’s Student Coordinator, Jeff Taylor believes, “[The funding] will be fine for the whole organization . what we use the funds for is to bring speakers to campus and for human rights issues. It should still allow us to make the [Saint Louis University] community aware of our issues . the only inconvenience was that the money was not available at the beginning of the year.”
The Saint Louis University Ultimate Team originally received $2,400, but settled with the figure of $1,949. Paul Grant, SLUUT’s president, is not terribly concerned about the final figure. “We haven’t been affected . we’ll still do the same stuff we planned before and won’t be pressed into having to have people from the team to pitch in for money.”
However, some organizations that asked for funds for the first time or received the smallest amount of funding are adjusting some of their planned activities. Elizabeth Lucier, treasurer for the Undergraduate Social Service Association, talked about having their initial sum of $500, dropped to $362.
“This was our first year for student funding, and we thought we had $500 to spend and had big stuff planned. It’s kind of a disappointment, but we’ll have to deal with it . I understand it (the funding error) happens, but it is something that could have been avoided.”
Other groups are looking for alternative funds in other areas due to the budget tightening. Peter Brokish, coordinator of SLU’s Blue Crew, the pep club at SLU basketball games, is attempting to get sponsorship from Rawlings. “You gotta do what you gotta do, but the lost funds forced us to seek money elsewhere.” He says that the initial allotment of approximately $2,400 would have been able to cover their costs, but the final sum of $1,715 left them strapped.
The group that took the largest cut was the Student Activity Board. In the beginning they were to receive $200,000 for the year, but that figure was cut to its present figure of $146,314; “$60,000, that’s a concert,” said Erin Dunn, SAB’s president. “I am still happy with the total budget, we can do a lot with it . It’s still disappointing because we got our hopes up from the original figure.”
Some of the frustration with the budget cuts is the debate over graduate involvement and contribution to the activity fee and a feeling that graduate students are allowed to take too much of the funds, even though they pay the same amount.
Brokish echoes this sentiment, “The undergrads feel they should have more funds from the graduate students money due to their involvement in the undergrads’ CSOs.”
Many graduate students do participate in undergraduate organizations and are allowed to attend all SAB, SGA and club activities. A 10 percent cut is deducted from the graduate students activity fee to off-set their involvement. That is a $3 addition to the undergraduate CSO’s.
Dunn does not feel that 10 percent is enough. “Grads should pay a little more than they do because they do more then $3 worth of our activities,” she said.
Some graduate students have a different opinion. “I think 10 percent is good . if they were going to take more money, I would really want to look at how much stuff grads do with the undergrads,” says Jerry Warchol, a first-year law student.
Second-year law student, John Mueller, takes a similar stance. “I think it is really something you need to look into . messing with the formula of 10 percent would upset grad students, and a lot of the grad programs need that money.”
Regardless of the cuts and the debate revolving around the final figures, CSOs are receiving more than they ever have before. SAB’s funding is up 125 percent even after the cuts, SLUUT is receiving 696.4 percent more than the year before, and the Undergrad Social Service Association received funds for the first time. Most organizations received similar increases in funding, like the Black Student Alliance’s 80.9 percent increase. The overall increase is around 70 percent, and only a few organizations like KSLU, who was down 4.3 percent, lost funding.
There is still a consensus that more can be given or distributed based on involvement and needs from both graduate and undergraduates. The numbers are in for this year, but the final word on what is equitable for all CSOs does not seem to be determined.
