After last year’s financial fiasco left organizations such as WMUC on the verge of disbanding, and this semester’s secondary allocation process was canceled due to a lack of funds, the Student Government Association is finally tackling the student group funding crisis. The SGA’s single most important job is allocating the $1.5 million that comes from our $32 student activity fees. How well they carry the process out affects every student on the campus.
Props to the SGA for establishing the Financial Reform Commission to find solutions to this monster of a problem, and for being transparent and inclusive enough to invite the student body’s participation.
Applications for the commission are now closed; candidates are being interviewed and meetings will begin in the coming weeks. According to Gursean Singh, SGA’s assistant vice president of finance and the man heading up the commission, the group has a “very broad mandate,” and “nothing is off the table.”
Singh says the commission’s central objective is greater efficiency, asking: “How can we do more with what we already have?”
Having led three student groups, I can attest to several problems with the current funding system. Some groups have no funding source beyond the SGA, which puts extra pressure on the communal pot. A second problem is that organizations frequently apply for much more funding than they need in anticipation of the SGA making uniform cuts to groups’ allocations, regardless of whether groups ask for a modest amount or a preposterous sum.
Yet, there is one problem that absolutely needs to be addressed: the late April paradox.
Many of you will recall what happened on April 20, when 13 student groups submitted appeals requesting more funding from the SGA (although some of you, for different reasons, may have no recollection whatsoever of that day). There was a limited pot of $50,000 available, and the competitive tension was palpable as groups made desperate pleas and sat together in rows like defendants awaiting their verdicts.
Despite the huge shortage for groups’ 2011-12 budgets, there was an excess of money student leaders were frantically trying to spend before the 2010-11 term ended. Much of this money was spent on programming that was not fully essential. As the year winds down, student leaders are sometimes forced to circulate co-sponsorship requests saying things like, “in case you have any last minute money you need to get rid of…”
Thus, in late April, the student group community is excessively rich and hopelessly poor — simultaneously. Singh hopes his commission would address what he calls a “frenzy to spend.”
I have two recommendations.
First, we need to squash the fear among student group leaders that if groups have money left over, the SGA will hold it against them next time. This is a huge misperception, and the SGA needs to get the word out that it’s absolutely natural (and actually good) if groups have leftovers, because excess money goes into the communal pot for secondary funding.
Second, the SGA should implement a partial rollover system. If a group has money left at the end of the spring term they get, say, 25 percent of it back in September. A new incentive structure would allay fears and reward responsible spending.
I hope the commission takes its responsibility seriously and that my proposal sparks some conversation. We have a huge challenge and opportunity to fix the system. After all, this is not $1.5 million of Monopoly money we’re dealing with.
Ben Simon is a senior government and politics major. He can be reached at simon@umdbk.com.
