Shira Saperstein
The bill stripping the six advisory boards of their votes on the Funding Board has passed through the Georgetown University Student Association’s Ways and Means and Financial and Appropriations Committees, but GUSA senators are bracing for a contentious vote when the bill comes up again in the general meeting of the full Senate at the beginning of next month.
The bill will bring two major changes to the club funding process. Advisory boards will no longer have votes on the Funding Board, meaning the Finance and Appropriations Committee will be solely in charge of allocating the money collected from the student activities fee. Furthermore, all budgets passed by the Finance and Appropriations Committee will require approval from the GUSA Executive and full GUSA Senate before going into effect.
Senator Colton Malkerson (COL ’13), a sponsor of the bill, hopes to get a statement of support from one of the six advisory boards in order to sway undecided senators. However, opposition is already evident among the advisory boards.
Nick Calta (COL ‘10), chairman of the Sports Advisory Board, believes the new rules will be detrimental for club sports that rely on the Student Activities Fee.
“If we should concentrate power in anyone’s hands it shouldn’t be GUSA’s,” Calta said. “They are not good at dealing with realities or doing research. They told us to cut our reserves and then they were all shocked to find out they had a reserve fund.”
GUSA eliminated their reserve fund shortly after the senators discovered it.
Malkerson said the Finance and Appropriations Committee made changes to the original draft of the bill, adding in executive and Senate oversight in order to create a system of checks and balances. He is unsure how much support there will be for the bill when it comes up before the full Senate and said at Wednesday’s Finance and Appropriations Committee meeting that he is “very paranoid” about how the vote could go. Malkerson estimated that he currently has the support of 12 senators, four short of the 16 votes needed if all senators are present for the vote.
The bill was passed by GUSA’s Ways and Means committee last Sunday, but only after the Speaker of the Senate, Adam Talbot (COL ‘12), insisted that at least two weeks pass for reflection and constituent consultation before the bill faces a vote in the full Senate.
Talbot said that he has not yet decided where he stands on the bill, and is waiting until next Wednesday’s town hall to make up his mind.
Student Activities Commission Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ’11) has voiced opposition to the bill, saying that GUSA’s first club funding reform bill displayed their lack of understanding of the process. She said that some of the six recommendations were impractical, while others were already being followed by all the advisory boards.
“They based their legislation on inaccurate information,” Amponsah said.
Amponsah says that her most important job is to advocate for student clubs and organizations, which is best accomplished by giving votes to the six advisory boards during the allocation process.
“This bill takes a voice away from student organizations,” Amponsah said.
Members of the Finance and Appropriations Committee counter that the current system, where advisory boards vote on their own budgets, doesn’t make sense.
“It would seem odd for the people applying [for funds] to have a vote on the process,” Senator Colton Malkerson, a sponsor of the bill, said.
GUSA will hold a Funding Reform Town Hall meeting next Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. in Reiss 112.
Nick Calta’s comments and subsequent explanation are clearly misleading. A reserve fund was made over the summer by Bill McCoy and Erika Cohen-Derr in order to make some accounting process easier. The reserve account didn’t have a single penny in it and was promptly terminated upon hearing of its creation.
To echo what George said, Nick Calta’s quote wasn’t explaind very well: The article fails to mention that this “GUSA reserve” was created without the consent of the senate or Fin-Ap, and never held any money.
Just a few explanatory notes, which the article seems to look-over:
The proposed changes don’t take away the advisory boards’ voice – they create an accountable and transparent process that facilitates MORE student funding.
To give you an idea: As it stands now, convening the Funding board requires 6 advisory board heads, countless advisory board members, the GUSA Exec, 7 Fin-Ap members, and board faculty advisors to find a mutually free time. Then, everyone meets, comes to a decisions (partisan, typically), and then the process repeats itself in 10 days due to lack of consensus. At the meetings, each board not only argues for their own interests (expected), but also argues for other boards they don’t represent as a way of facilitating a quidproquo – “you pass my budget, I’ll pass yours.”
In the new system, student funding – AND JUST STUDENT ACTIVITIES FEE FUNDING – goes back into the hands of the elected student representatives. The student body decided not once, but twice to give GUSA oversight over distribution of the Student Activities fee. That’s all we’re asking to do. We’re not eliminating anyone’s voice – in fact, we’re creating as system where everyone’s voice is more clearly heard. Over the course of the seem three week period where we previously convened the funding board, now individual advisory boards can propose individual budgets to the neutral Fin-Ap committees. And that’s not all – now advisory boards have a 7-day draft period, a 7-day appeal period, and then additional checks through the GUSA senate and Executive.
If SAC (for example) wants to argue that the GUSA Senators aren’t equipped to consider funding for SAC interests, then what makes the Media Board or GPB anymore equipped? If SAC disagrees with Fin-Aps current decision on funding, there’s nothing they can do to change it. In the new system, SAC (or any other advisory board) can appeal, lobby elected senators, or lobby the executive.
Once again, don’t forget that this won’t affect university funding for student groups. This only deals with the STUDENT ACTIVITY FEE – the money students entrusted to GUSA! We’re talking about a very small fraction of total student funding, which the advisory boards use as a suplements to their existing funding.
On a final note, I think it’s interesting that SAC claims that groups already follow many of the 6 points. Let me see – as far as I recall, SAC’s votes aren’t recorded, their considerations aren’t public, their representatives aren’t elected – it goes on and on. Some of the other advisory boards have made great process to following the 6 points – we commend those groups. But for the groups that stubbornly insist on the status quo – stingy student funding and an unaccountable/untransparent process – I must disagree.
I apologize for some of the minor word and spelling errors – is there a way to edit posts?
George and Matt,
I can only control what I say in an interview, not the way it is presented. I didn’t represent your reserve as having anything in it, but the fact that you didn’t realize it existed pretty much an entire semester after it was created still is a result of a lack of research on your part.
On a related note, I agree with Colton that “It would seem odd for the people applying [for funds] to have a vote on the process.” Interestingly, GUSA is one of the organizations that applies for money from the Funding Board every year, and their applications have grown substantially in the past year.
…Was I sleep-typing, or is there another Matt equally interested in GUSA? Weird.
Great points by other Matt, though. I think the funding reforms in the resolution unanimously passed by the Senate are the most important for the FinAp to be working for. Exerting democratic control over the distribution of funds to the advisory boards is one thing, but actually making sure the boards carry out funding clubs in a transparent, efficient and accountable way is another.
Clubs are most concerned with the lengthy and onerous process it takes to get funds, with the lack of accountability of advisory board heads that distribute these funds (students’ own funds), with the lack of an independent appeals process if clubs are wrongfully denied, of (some) appeals boards squirreling away tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in money while refusing to distribute it to clubs, and so on and so forth.
Which is why, when reading this, I have to laugh:
“Student Activities Commission Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ’11) has voiced opposition to the bill, saying that GUSA’s first club funding reform bill displayed their lack of understanding of the process. She said that some of the six recommendations were impractical, while others were already being followed by all the advisory boards.”
Please, Ms. Amponsah, tell us which ones you are already following and which are impractical?
1. Option for clubs to take annual lump-sum funding as opposed to event-by-event funding: Nope
2. Independent appeals process: Nope, you can only re-argue your case before the same SAC commissioners.
3. Open voting and minutes publicly posted in a timely fashion? SAC actually amended their Constitution last year to *enshrine* the principle of secret voting; votes by commissioner still aren’t listed, although SAC has made an effort to make minutes public.
4. Club elected or otherwise accountable board leadership? Nope. The SAC chair selects his or her successor, and that successor then selects everyone else on the Board. Just imagine if the incoming GUSA President was selected by the outgoing one, and the new President selected the entire Senate!?
5. Clubs be given reasonable control over the funds they raise themselves? Nope. Still have to get permission from SAC to use them.
The only defensible point was GUSA’s original demand to reduce reserves to 10% of yearly expenditures. They’ve since backed off. Nothing else I can see is at all unreasonable or impractical; indeed, most peer schools have long-since implemented every one of the reforms.
And @Nick:
“On a related note, I agree with Colton that “It would seem odd for the people applying [for funds] to have a vote on the process.” Interestingly, GUSA is one of the organizations that applies for money from the Funding Board every year, and their applications have grown substantially in the past year.”
From what I’ve read, there are numerous checks and balances to neutralize any possible bias.
1. The GUSA budget is presented by the newly-elected GUSA Executive, not the Senate or the members of the FinAp committee. The GUSA President is elected by the entire student body.
2. The members of the Senate are all elected.
3. The elected Senate further elects the members of the Finance & Appropriations Committee.
4. Any budget must pass by a 2/3rds vote of the FinAp members.
5. After passing the FinAp Committee, there must be a seven day public comment period before it reaches the Senate. If the advisory boards, dissenting Senators or students wish to lobby the Senate or Executive, they may do so.
6. The Senate requires 2/3rds vote to pass.
7. The GUSA President needs to sign it. If the President vetoes it or the Senate fails to pass, it goes back to the FinAp, and there’s another seven day waiting period for comment once the new budget is made.
So there are, from my account, about seven or eight ways to exert influence and provide checks and balances in the process.
Matt,
All those “checks and balances” are still within GUSA, which is controlled by 5-10 guys and has pretty hazy lines between senate and executive. This is an organization that is not capable of keeping track of the decisions it makes, and apparently loses bills it approves.
Your point #5…seriously? “Public Comment” counts as a check and/or balance? Lobbying is not the same as voting. It isn’t a check.