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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This week’s Georgetown University Student Association meeting featured an irksome inauguration (just like Obama’s!) and tear-jerking eulogies to Philly P’s. Here’s the wrap:

Inaugurations: GUSA swore in the newly-reelected President and Vice President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11) and Jason Kluger (MSB ‘11)—perhaps extraconstitutionally?

“There is a curious little quirk of the by-laws which requires the outgoing president and vice-president to administer the oath to the incoming president and vice-president,” Parliamentarian Sam Ungar (COL ‘12) told the Senate. Given that the outgoing president and vice-president and the incoming president and vice-president were one and the same, Ungar decided to administer the oath himself.

After their swearing in, both candidates delivered speeches to the GUSA senate. Kluger called on the Senate to remember Gandhi’s words to become the change they want to see in the world, while Angert urged Senators to maintain their dedication to the GUSA senate and never be afraid to throw themselves into large and challenging projects. Angert then swore in newly-elected Senator Andrew Foley (MSB ‘10), who could not raise his right hand because his arm is broken—another suspect inauguration?

GUSA Fund Bolsters Funding Board: The GUSA senate approved a bill to transfer $15,000 from the GUSA fund to the Student Activities Fee Reserve account, which is used to provide funds to advisory boards. Chairman of the Finance and Appropriations Committee Nick Troiano (COL ‘11) said he had talked with GUSA Fund Chair Kate Petersen (COL ‘11) and that she said the GUSA Fund could limit its spending to $15,000 for the semester.

“We simply want to go into the budget process with as much money as we can,” Troiano said.

New Sign: GUSA unanimously approved a bill to appropriate $200 towards the creation of a vinyl sign bearing GUSA’s logo. The bill was introduced by Senator Nolan Johnson (COL’11), who said the sign was “a great way to make use of GUSA’s new logo”.

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 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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The planned GUSA Fund would make it rain

Leaders from all six advisory boards voted against creating the GUSA Fund at a Funding Board meeting today, but the Finance and Appropriations Committee will still be able to pass the GUSA Fund through the Funding Board without their approval.

At the meeting, advisory board leaders voiced concerns that GUSA would not have the knowledge to run the GUSA Fund. They asked what kind of experience the GUSA Fund members would have, how GUSA would know if events were duplicities of events that already existed, and how the GUSA Fund would handle clubs that went over budget.

GUSA senators also learned at the meeting that the Funding Board has $51,412 in reserve, unlike $69,687 like they had previously believed. The GUSA Fund plans to draw $30,000 from that reserve, meaning the GUSA Fund will now require more than half.

GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ‘12—LXR) said the GUSA executive will be looking for GUSA fund members who can bring both funding experience and club management experience. In regards to event duplicities, Finance and Appropriations Chair Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A, A-D) replied that because of access to benefits, advisory boards would still need to approve official club-sponsored events before the GUSA Fund could allocate funds.

Advisory board members suggested this would make an already tedious process even more bureaucratic.

“Clubs are looking for funds, and they’re willing to jump through hoops to get it,” GUSA Chief of Staff Tim Swenson replied. “While we’re trying to make it as streamlined as possible …. this is our way of addressing that temporarily.” [Edited at 10:21 p.m.]

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Looks like the war between GUSA and the Student Activities Commission is heating up: The Voice has obtained the draft of a bill (below) that proposes to give GUSA complete control over the entire Student Activities Fee.

Currently, the Student Activities Fee is administered by GUSA’s Finance and Appropriation Committee and six funding boards: Media Board, Club Sports, the Performing Arts Advisory Council, the Georgetown Program Board, SAC, and the Center for Social Justice.

At the annual spring Budget Summit the groups divvy the money (around $650,000) amongst themselves and try to come up with a unanimous vote. If, after six days, the vote isn’t unanimous, a majority vote decides money allocation.

This new legislation would change that, making GUSA’s Finance and Appropriation Committee the only board members with votes. There’s more, including the estimated timeframe for the bill, at the Voice site.

After the jump, check out the draft of the bill.

Reporting by Kara Brandeisky

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After years of clashing with SAC and bandying about the possibility of GUSA-sponsored club funding, the GUSA Senate passed a bill yesterday afternoon creating a GUSA Fund which will allow GUSA to provide an alternative mode of funding for clubs.

Longtime SAC-critic Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A A-D) introduced the bill, which would create “the Fund” to “[serve] as a resource for the Georgetown community by co-sponsoring events and activities that are initiated by or benefit students.”

The Fund will consist of five members nominated by GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and confirmed by the Senate. The Fund will meet once a week to consider applications for funds received through an online application.

The Fund will be able up to $500 per organization, event or initiative, but the Senate must approve any requested allocation over $500. The Fund will only be able to give money to groups that have already been granted access to benefits through SAC, and organizations receiving money from the Fund will have to “make it known” that GUSA has co-sponsored the event.

Where will money for the Fund be coming from?  According to Troiano, GUSA will seek to gain about $30,000 from the Funding Board’s $69,000 surplus.

Troiano said the Fund should be ready to allocate funding by December or the start of next semester.

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