At the start of the new club funding process, the Student Activities Commission requested $35,000 from the Georgetown University Student Association, the new guardians of our Student Activities Fee, only to be scoffed at: in the draft budget it proposed just before Spring Break, the Georgetown University Student Association Finance and Appropriations Committee suggested that SAC get a total allocation of a mere $12,500.

The FinApp Committee meant this miserly counter-’offer’ as a rebuke of SAC for having refused to adopt some of GUSA’s six reforms for advisory boards—”in recognition that the Commission is in good standing with some, but not all, of the reform proposals,” in the words of the FinApp committee. But if the committee hoped its penny-pinching would coerce SAC into adopting the remaining reforms, for the moment, they’re going to be disappointed. In an e-mail to SAC club leaders sent today, SAC Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ‘11) tells clubs to brace themselves for the limitations the meager GUSA allocation will place on SAC allocation, even as it dips into its reserves.

“I would like to note that SAC has complied with 4 out of the 6 recommendations in an effort to compromise with the Committee,” she wrote. “The draft budget reduces SAC’s allocation budget by about 15%. Please consider how this will effect your organizational budget as this reduction will be felt across all SAC groups …. FinApp would like to mandate that SAC use the excess funds for its allocation budget. However, that is not sustainable as within two years the excess funds would be depleted and SAC would still receive insufficient funds from FinApp.”

SAC’s reserves, she said, are currently at $215,000, and the Office of Student Affairs has suggested that it should maintain reserves of at least $150,000.

In response to Amponsah’s claims, Chair of the FinApp Committee Nick Troiano (COL ‘11) said that SAC had only made good faith efforts towards completing three of the six reforms GUSA would like it to make. They are still not disclosing how their individual members vote on allocations, he said, they do not yet have a plan to spend down their reserves, and they do not have a method for picking their leadership that is accountable to the student body.

Read more, plus Amponsah’s full message after the jump, and a statement from members of the FinApp Committee after the jump.

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The Georgetown University Student Association Finance and Appropriations Committee has drafted a budget for the fiscal year 2010 allocation of the Student Activities Fee. Here is the breakdown of the draft budget, along with comments made by the FinApp Committee explaining the draft allocation amounts:

• The Georgetown Programming Board requested $45,000 and the FinApp Committee has suggested they receive $42,500

  “This represents a substantial 11.84% increase in allocated student activity fee money from last year’s allocation ($38,000). The main reasons for the increased allocation are increasing busing costs, an increase in the number of cultural events, the desire to increase the caliber of the annual Spring Kickoff Concert, and to deliver more overall programming benefiting the student body.”

• SAC requested $37,000 and the draft allocation is for $12,500, less than half of their request.

  “In our draft budget, our committee decided to allocate the Student Activities Commission $12,500 out of its $37,500 requested this year, in recognition that the Commission is in good standing with some, but not all, of the reform proposals. The committee has set aside an additional $12,500 to be allocated if SAC comes to a compromise on the fourth and fifth points of reform.

  “The potential total of $25,000 is significantly less than the funding request because the Commission, as determined by the Vice President’s office, possesses over $60,000 in excess reserve funds. We would expect the Commission to begin spending down this reserve to cover the balance of this allocation, and not cut back on club funding. Furthermore, it is noted that several members of the Committee have advocated a $0 allocation for the Commission for as long as it fails to comply with the outstanding two reform points.”

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After last week’s high-stakes and controversial Georgetown University Student Association meeting, where they passed comprehensive funding reform legislation, this week’s meeting hewed closer to classic GUSA style: longer than necessary, peppered with perfunctory legislation, and largely innocuous.

The 2010 GUSA Presidential Debate

The meeting began with a discussion about the much-anticipated GUSA Presidential Debate. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ‘12) said it will be “99 percent sure taking place on Wednesday, 89 percent sure taking place in Sellinger Lounge,” with the doubt over the location due to the fact that they have not yet reserved the Lounge. GUSA Parliamentarian Sam Ungar (COL ‘12) said that the debate would include all four presidential candidates, and feature questions from representatives of the major campus media organizations.

Public Comment Legislation

The first bill passed by the GUSA Senate changed the GUSA bylaws to require the Finance and Appropriations Committee to convene a public hearing within seven days of drafting of a budget so that representatives of advisory boards can voice concerns they may have over the budget. The bill also requires the speaker to allow for a period of public comment during the general senate meeting at which the budget will be voted on.

The bill faced essentially no opposition, mostly because it wasn’t changing the current practices. As Speaker Talbot said when he voiced his support for the bill, “The seven day waiting period is already sort of institutionalized… and I think it was sort of connoted in the wording that that time was there for individual chairs of the advisory boards to come and voice their concerns.” The bill was approved unanimously.

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If we learned anything about the GUSA Senate this Monday night it’s that they have a USPS-like devotion to braving the elements.  As the rest of the school buckled down for our second-consecutive snow day, the Senate reaffirmed that neither snow nor gloom of night would interfere with its commitment to legislating.

And legislate it did, slogging through a two-hour discussion before passing the controversial Act to Modify the By-laws to Improve Student Activities Funding by a vote of 19 to four.  The bill will strip advisory boards of their votes on allocating the Student Activities Fee, giving control of the process to GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee.

The meeting opened with a period of public comment on the bill.  The three student who spoke all expressed opposition to the changes.  Nick Calta (COL ‘10), Chair of the Advisory Board for Club Sports, cautioned that the bill would create “the potential for really wide fluctuations in funding”; a representative from the Center for Social Justice decried the adversarial tone of the debate and urged senators to think about “what kind of leadership this legislation is promoting”; and former GUSA Senator and current GUSA Presidential Candidate Matt Wagner (SFS ‘11) warned that it would be “a huge mistake” to pass the bill.

After a quick executive briefing—in which GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11), when asked by a Senator about his stance, said he “fully endorsed” the bill—the act’s co-sponsors, Senators Nick Troiano (COL ‘11, Village A: A-D) and Colton Malkerson (COL ‘13, Harbin 2-5), gave their spiel about bill, explaining what exactly it would change and why they believe it is necessary.

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Given the kind of concerned, accusatory letters some advisory board leaders sent in the last week, the town hall that the Georgetown University Student Association hosted last night to shed additional light on its proposed funding reforms was surprisingly quiet. A few students grudgingly observed that they didn’t think GUSA had enough knowledge about the various advisory boards to oversee the new club funding process they are proposing, and club representatives individually worried about how specific events their group holds will be affected by the potential funding changes. But for the most part, the town hall was uncontentious. It even ended early.

It kicked off with a half-hour presentation by members of GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee detailing the reforms they intend to (or already have) passed in order to completely remake the current process by which student groups at Georgetown get funding, followed by a about an hour-and-a-half long question and answer session.

Standing below a large powerpoint presentation in a lecture hall in Reiss, members of the FinApp committee reiterated the now-familiar goals of funding reform, among them increasing transparency and efficiency in the funding process, and improving oversight of those involved in allocating the Student Activities Fee, the $50 that each student pays at the beginning of each semester. FinApp members also touched on some of the things they feel show that there their efforts have student consensus, like the Accountability and Reform Amendment—an amendment that students passed in 2006 giving GUSA the authority to the authority to audit the advisory boards and final say as to how much money is appropriated to each board.

Greg Laverriere (COL ‘12) walked the audience of about thirty students through the results of a club satisfaction survey GUSA conducted last semester (see the results here), and summed up student sentiment about the current funding process.

“Student clubs and organizations face an uphill climb to secure resources and receive reasonable control over their activities …. Student clubs and organizations are not getting the money they deserve and need,” he said, adding that the club funding process is bloated and opaque compared to the process at peer schools.

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On Thursday, Vox published a letter that Student Activities Commission Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ‘11) had sent to student club leaders challenging the various funding reforms the Georgetown University Student Association is working to enact. In her e-mail, she referenced another letter she had sent to GUSA specifically addressing the six reforms GUSA had said all of the funding boards must achieve, or they would withhold student activity fees from the boards.

Vox has obtained the letter from Amponsah, which she sent on December 4. In her letter, she maintains that there is already an appeals process for clubs that go before SAC, SAC meetings are already open to the public, and that SAC is already in the process of creating a means for clubs to get lump sum funding. (Disclosure: Amponsah and I participated in an After School Kids group together our freshman year).

Readers have also sent Vox a letter that members of GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee, including Chair Nick Troiano (COL ‘11), sent to club leaders in response to Amponsah’s e-mail on Friday, January 29.

“We’d like to set the record straight,” it reads. “Our proposed reforms seek to make the student activities funding process more democratic, accountable and efficient. Let us be clear, our sole intention is to make the system work better for you.”

Finally, there’s a letter from the Center for Social Justice Advisory Board for Student Organizations to its student clubs in response to GUSA’s proposed reforms.

“If officially passed, this legislation would greatly hinder ABSO’s ability to represent, actively advocate, or secure funding for you,” the letter reads.

Read all three letters in full after the jump!

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In response to the legislation to reform the Funding Board that the Georgetown University Student Association will soon consider, Student Activity Commission Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ‘11) has sent the letter reproduced below to student club leaders. In it, she emphasizes that there is legislation to eliminate the votes Advisory Board chairs who sit on the Funding Board have, including the SAC Chair, and her feeling that the six reforms GUSA has suggested were based on misconceptions. She promises to fight the proposed changes.

“By eliminating our votes, GUSA will … remove your representation as student organizations on the Funding Board, thereby limiting our opportunity to participate in the process of distributing the Student Activities Fee in an equitable manner.

“GUSA states that this legislation is based upon its 6 recommendations presented to all of the Advisory Boards. I have responded to these arbitrary recommendations, noting various errors within the document and statements made based on rumors,” she writes.

“Please know that we will do everything possible to prevent changes to the voting structure of the Funding Board.” (Disclosure: Amponsah and I participated in an After School Kids group together our freshman year).

Student club members’ responses to the host of club funding reforms GUSA began pushing for in the fall, including the 6 reforms Amponsah references, have been a mixed bag, but several advisory board chairs sitting on the Funding Board have balked at GUSA’s proposal to strip them of their votes.

At the same time, many club leaders have expressed their displeasure with SAC’s funding process and Amponsah’s letter itself, with some of the club leaders who forwarded Amponsah’s e-mail to Vox saying her letter used scare tactics. Amponsah has not yet responded to requests for comment about these characterizations, but we’ll update this post with her response when she does.

Update 10:47 a.m. January 29: Amponsah has responded by e-mail, “The letter I wrote to student organizations is in no way a fear tactic.  I believe in informing students about changes in policy or procedure that may directly affect their organizations, not scaring them.”

See the full letter after the jump!

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These little piggies want to keep their votes

When the Funding Board reconvened yesterday after the board’s contentious meeting two weeks ago, it approved the GUSA Fund once GUSA agreed to amend its request of $30,000 and instead ask for $26,000 from the general Funding Board reserve. GUSA now plans to provide $4,000 from its own operating budget, pending Senate approval.

Advisory board members indicated that GUSA investing some of its own money would be a show of good faith since advisory board members were concerned about investing such a large sum in a new funding structure. Last meeting, all six advisory boards voted down the GUSA Fund. After this meeting’s amendment, the five advisory board members voted yes, with only GPB Chair Matt Brennan (COL ‘10) voting no. Brennan had said he wanted the Funding Board to allocate even less to start up the Fund and then reconsider how much the Fund needed in the spring.

The Funding Board came to its decision after Erika Cohen-Derr, Director of Student Programs, encouraged the group to seek “consensus based opinion” instead of a unanimous decision. GUSA members wanted to move forward in the meeting, but advisory boards reiterated the need for more discussion before the group moved to a vote.

“At every funding board meeting I’ve been to before this, after each proposal, we actually talk about it, talk about changing it, and try to figure out a proposal that’s acceptable to everybody, whereas this year, we’ve voted and waited 10 days,” said Club Sports Chair Nick Calta (COL ‘10).

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GUSA’s intended punishment for the Voice

Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11) shot back at the critics of GUSA’s funding board reform at yesterday’s meeting, delivering an eight-minute rebuttal to a recent Voice editorial, which advocated against the reform. In Troiano’s words, he wanted to “set the record straight.” He described the editorial’s claim that reform could “threaten the funding sources for clubs and sports teams” as “unfounded, incendiary remarks, that I believe are flat-out irresponsible for a campus media outlet to state.”

Troiano cited a 2006 referendum that passed with 91 percent of the vote to give GUSA the power to appropriate Student Association funds as evidence that the student population was in support of the reform. He said that “91 percent of students disagree with the editorial board” on the board’s assertion that giving the Senate absolute control over the student activities fee threatens student clubs and student life on campus.

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GUSA’s quest to completely restructure the funding of student activities at Georgetown can get a little confusing, so Vox has whipped up a guide to the motivations for and alleged effects of GUSA’s activities.

Above are the responses to the survey GUSA Senators have cited as part of their evidence for the need for club funding reform. Below, representatives of three of the six boards brief us on the ways they feel GUSA’s efforts could affect their boards and provide

Simplistically, GUSA’s efforts to revamp club funding are twofold: there’s the legislation to create the GUSA Fund sing $30,000 of the $51,412 that the six different funding boards have in their reserves Funding Board, made up  of representatives of the six different funding boards, has in its reserves, which all six funding boards have balked at, and then there’s legislation to withhold the student activity fees we pay that fund the six boards if the boards did not achieve six reforms.

The graphs above show the results of the survey which GUSA Senators cited at a recent meeting when they talked about why the funding boards need an overhaul. By and large, they say, funding processes have become too bureaucratic. The survey went to over 100 clubs and 41 clubs have responded so far (no one from the Performing Arts Advisory Council or the Georgetown Programming Board has responded yet), according to Greg Laverriere (COL ‘12—Henle 49-96).

Club members gave the Student Activities Commission the lowest score for its funding process and advice and the highest score for the difficulty of obtaining funding, but the Center for Social Justice was not far behind in two cases.

After the jump, see what members of three funding boards had to say about the effects of GUSA’s legislation!

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