LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

In response to D. Clark Denison’s article, “Candidates start SGB campaigns,” I feel the… In response to D. Clark Denison’s article, “Candidates start SGB campaigns,” I feel the platforms of presidential candidates Shady Henien and Will Powers need to be further addressed. In my four years on the Student Government Board Allocations Committee, and now as its chair, I have seen many elections, all with candidates running on allocations reform with a number of poorly researched and ill-advised ideas.

Presidential candidate Shady Henien stated “The current allocations process does not allow unspent money to be returned to the student activities fund until the end of the year.” In fact, this is completely untrue. Money allocated for the fall semester that is unspent is returned to the student activity fund in December so it can be reallocated in the spring semester. Furthermore, forcing student organizations to return funds immediately after their events will severely harm every organization on campus. This idea will completely destroy the reasoning behind budget modifications, which much of the allocations process revolves around.

SGB has always believed that organizations should be able to move around money and use their budget to benefit the campus through as many programs as possible. This new idea to help some organizations on campus will, in fact, harm every organization.

Presidential candidate Will Powers also has “new” ideas about how to “fix” the allocations process. Well, they’re kind of new. In fact, this Thursday the board will be voting on setting aside money for spring supplemental requests, a goal current SGB President Joe Pasqualichio has dedicated much of his term to achieving. Powers has decided to take it a step further and wishes to set aside a huge amount of money ($125,000) for the fall semester. This is completely unnecessary and will achieve nothing more than hindering the budget process. And the miniscule amount of money designated for the spring ($75,000) will not even hope to cover spring supplementals.

I urge everyone to go out to the presidential debate tonight at 7 p.m. in Towers Lobby and hear for yourselves what these candidates are planning to do with your money. I hope it will give you some insight as to who you will be casting your vote for on Nov. 14.

Michelle Turbanic Allocations Chair mjt8@pitt.edu