SGB strict with new allocations

Despite criticism from Rainbow Alliance, Student Government Board still says that it has been… Despite criticism from Rainbow Alliance, Student Government Board still says that it has been allocating funding to student groups properly and objectively. Numerous groups have experienced budget deferments based on lack of documentation, a change of practice from past boards.

In past years, boards would allocate a budget to groups without seeing specific details on how they would spend it. In that system, any unused money would be returned to SGB at the end of the fiscal year, but SGB couldn’t spend that money elsewhere until it was returned. Kevin Morrison, current SGB president and a former allocations chair, said that this year’s board is making an effort to change the way the allocations process works.

‘This is an effort to have the money actually spent in the times that it’s allocated for,’ he said.

During Tuesday’s meeting, members of Rainbow Alliance said that SGB deferred a request for $5,035.35 for two speakers at two separate times without giving any explanation or reasoning. SGB responded by saying that the group had failed to provide the allocations committee with proper documentation ‘- specifically, a set room and date for the two speaking engagements ‘- when it submitted its original budget and the budget appeal.

‘Getting a room and a date is a very simple element in setting up a program,’ said Morrison. ‘We need a good-faith effort showing that these events will happen in the future.’

Allocations policy requires that all student organizations give a reserved room and date to request money for an event or speaker, he said. If a group does not submit this documentation, the board automatically defers the money.

‘ Rainbow Alliance said these requirements were never made clear to the group and felt there needed to be better communication between student groups and SGB to prevent things like this from occurring in the future. They also said that it is difficult to book guest speakers without approved funding, because without it, they cannot guarantee pay to a speaker.

‘ Rainbow Alliance isn’t the only student organization that has fallen subject to budget deferments. Hillel’s $20,000 annual budget was deferred because they failed to give documentation showing a reserved room for the speaker events, among other scheduling issues related to speakers, said Morrison. Other groups including Black Action Society, Resident Students Association, Panhellenic Association and National Pan-Hellenic Council have been deferred funding this year, too.

Morrison said all student groups, including Rainbow Alliance, have multiple opportunities to contact members of the allocation committee to discuss issues during the budgeting process. And, according to the allocations manual, at least one member of each group is strongly encouraged to meet with the allocations committee before submitting a budget, during the budget decision-making process and also if the group decides to appeal for deferred funds in their budgets.

‘There are five times when groups can have problems explained to them,’ he said. ‘It’s explicitly clear in person and in writing.’

But Nikolai Condee-Padunov, the political action chair for Rainbow Alliance, disagreed, saying the board never told the group about the need for documentation until Tuesday’s general body meeting. Condee-Padunov also works in the SGB office and said if the allocations committee had questions about the budget, they could have come to him.

‘At the allocations meeting, we asked if they had any questions, and they didn’t address the issue of ‘TBA,” he said of the unspecified speaker information. ‘And I’m in the office every day. They could’ve just asked me.’

Condee-Padunov also said this is the first time the organization has been deferred funding for speakers on two separate occasions. He also said it asked for money to sponsor three speakers, and all three had ‘TBA’ in the budget, a violation of the budgeting rules for allocations.

‘We had the same thing for all three, but we were deferred for two,’ he said. ‘If the board is going to say this is its reason for deferring us, they should be consistent in their practices. And if they want us to just put something down, then they want us to lie to them. It just seems inconsistent.’

Morrison said Rainbow Alliance had the proper documentation for speaker Keith Boykin, whom they were given the money for.

SGB deferred funding to bring Justin Tanis and Robyn Ochs this fall.

Matt DeAngelis, the allocations committee chair, said the committee and the board have made consistent decisions regarding funding this year and have worked hard to accommodate groups that have been cooperative and have proven to be successful with the money given to them.

‘It works both ways,’ he said. ‘You want to work with a group that wants to work with you. We like helping student groups, but it’s more unfair to ones who have been working with us to give money away.’

Morrison agreed and said the allocations committee and the board consider the good and bad aspects of groups and their success when deciding on budgets for the semester. He said organizations that ‘reached outside their normal operations,’ paid their own membership dues and showed their marketing and events were successful will be rewarded in the long run.

‘Groups go in flux,’ he said. ‘Other groups with large budgets come to us and meet us halfway, without a doubt. We consider both the good and the bad, and there’s nothing biased or subjective about that.’