The semester got off to a rocky start for the SGA’s new group funding system. But officials said they’re working out the kinks, and the second round of fund allocations has proven to be smoother.
The Student Government Association began allocating funds to student groups on a rolling basis in the spring to save money and cut down on groups over-requesting funds. Last night’s appeals hearings for the semester’s second round of allocations began with less confusion and ended with more confident officials.
After the first round of allocations in September, the SGA received criticism for failing to communicate the changes in filing requirements that initially left 39 groups with rejected applications. But miscommunication didn’t seem to be as prevalent an issue in the second round, said Andrew Aggabao, SGA Financial Affairs vice president. Only one of the three appealing groups at last night’s hearing had unknowingly left information off their filings, compared with two in the first round.
Ballet Company M and the Gamer Symphony Orchestra were rejected for circumstances out of their control and successfully appealed for a combined $6,479.
“It’s not a miscommunication, it’s a situation that could be an exception,” Aggabao said. “That’s the purpose of legislative appeals. They should really be for quirky, weird issues that come up.”
Aggabao said the SGA’s finance committee rejected 50 percent of the money requested in the second round, a drop from the 70 percent they rejected in the first round. He said the decrease may indicate that students are learning the new system.
“The system may be a little flawed right now, but I know they’re doing what they can to fix it,” said Julie Rose, Ballet Company M president.
But as students become more familiar with the new system, Aggabao said new problems may emerge. So far, the number of groups making filing mistakes has prevented the SGA from reaching its monthly allocation limits.
“If every student group was a master of the system and applied correctly, we would have had to make a lot of cuts to these groups,” he said.
The SGA had almost $600,000 to distribute to more than 800 student groups for the year and has doled out nearly $100,000 so far. Officials had an extra $350,000 left over from the past fiscal year, but Aggabao said they are nervously anticipating years when they don’t have that kind of safety cushion.
“In a year with such flux, we really need that padding,” he said. “If we didn’t have it, this would be a lot more rough than it is.”
It’s a potential problem Aggabao and the finance committee have been discussing for a long time, he said. One remedy they are considering is raising the student activities fee.
“We haven’t really fleshed that [idea] out,” he said. “But it’s always been on the mind of the SGA in the past.”
