In regards to the $30,000 — it’s not exactly something that needs much justification. It’s an omnibus funding board for students and clubs alike, and one for supplementary funding. You really can’t know the need in advance because there’s never been one. But since any unused money will go back to the funding board at the end of the year, it’s not a big problem if they request too much. It’s an experiment.

As to the ABCS budget, again, all you need to do is convince one Senator out of 7, if the other funding board heads are convinced. It’ll be majority vote.

@2nd Club leader:

Exactly. Get one lump sum, eliminate this stupid Access to Benefits policy that requires every event to be ran past SAC and replace it with a policy of presumed compliance (with penalties for violating it) and 95% of club’s problems will be solved. Who knows better how to spend the money–Club leaders or student bureaucrats? It’s time we put them back at the wheel.

Presumably, if the funding boards work like they are supposed to, very little will make it to the GUSA Fund anyway. As I understand it, even SAC approves most events that come before it – people simply dislike (myself included) having to propose each event and being asked questions by people that don’t know what they are talking about. If I could go in in September, create a budget, and ignore SAC for the rest of the year if I wanted to – you wouldn’t hear any complaints from me – and probably most groups.

I agree with an earlier statement that it would be hilariously ironic if the SAC representative was the one that said the GUSA board wouldn’t have the experience or know what to do.

My proposal was, admittedly, thrown together at the last minute. However, it contained more concrete numbers to justify my logic (our remaining budget, our reserve account, estimated number of teams that may go to nationals, estimated cost for each team going to nationals) than were contained in the proposal for the GUSA Fund, which did not have any supporting numbers for a request of 30,000. I’m more than happy to prepare a full proposal for the next meeting of the funding board meeting, but I also think that GUSA should be held to the same standard. If no further details on the GUSA fund are presented at the next Funding Board meeting, I will be disappointed.

It’s also frustrating that I have to find out about these concerns about my proposal when my roommates happen to stumble across them buried deep in the comments of the Voice blog, and that nobody from GUSA bothered to explicitly tell me this.

The senate will be hosting town hall meetings in the near future to relay the changes that are occurring and the changes that need to occur still. I have been extremely proud of GUSA this year for finally playing hardball.

Regarding the reserves: Let me clarify.

In my mind there should be two separate reserves, reserves that advisory boards have direct control over, and the general reserve pile which they can request from.

The direct reserves should be large enough to cover the assumed yearly reserve dips each club makes (excluding capital expenditures). This can take into account events like spring concerts or other events that happen late in the school year.

If, for example, you look at yearly returns and you see that SAC expends on average around $50,000 out of the reserves in loans (that are later paid back), but once in a blue moon spend $10,000 or higher, let them keep somewhere around $50-60k in reserves. I’m making these figures up, but you get the point. Anything higher, they must resort to the general reserve fund.

I can’t speak for the other GUSA Senators, but I don’t have a problem with SAC having money in its reserves. I have a problem with SAC having $200,000 in its reserves.

That being said, I was the one lobbying for the allocation of the money and want to see Club Sports have enough money to give teams the funds necessary to go to nationals. There is also a $43,000 reserve fund that ABCS can dip into should you so choose. I highly encourage Nick to come back to the next meeting with a solid proposal so we can get the money allocated.