This week, the Student Activities Commission launched its latest club funding structure, called the Comprehensive Budget System. Though SAC Chair Andrew Koenig (COL ’12) called it a “fundamental departure from the ‘programming arc’ system of financial allocation, as well as a significant change in the way SAC approves organization events and operations,” the new system is neither a departure from the previous, flawed system nor a significant change in SAC’s labyrinthine bureaucracy.
Although it is laudable that SAC recognized that its initial programming arc structure required scrapping, student groups will find that little has changed from the old, widely disliked system. There is a difference between correcting an obvious flaw in the previous system and fundamentally changing the overall funding process.
This reform is a recipe for continued discontent with SAC as an institution, and it will not be surprising if a Commission chair a year or two down the road will be hailing a new system as a fundamental departure from the Comprehensive Budget System. Until the Commission gets serious about creating a truly new system, complaints will continue.
The most meaningful change is still a minor one: a shift from yearly programming arc submissions to semesterly budget allocations for all SAC groups. For an entire weekend each semester, every SAC group will present their plans for the next semester in front of the Commission at a “Budget Summit.” Although this shift will give groups greater flexibility in event planning, it will also force student leaders to sacrifice two weekends every year to defending their budgets in front of students that will be just as exhausted from midterms as they are.
The few minor improvements in the new system, such as reforms to travel funding and a shift to electronic approval of routine events, don’t address the underlying issue: a massive bureaucracy that drowns club leaders in paperwork and arbitrary rules. Ultimately, the welcome changes don’t affect the overall relationship between SAC and its organizations.
The idea of SAC reform is an excellent one, but somehow reforms are never as transformative as their lofty names or the fanfare that accompanies them may make it appear. Efforts to improve SAC must focus squarely on the causes of bureaucratic overload and better integrate student complaints into the Commission’s routine. For the sake of the clubs who are its constituents, the Commission must not think its era of reform is over.
