EDITORIAL – Allocations fix commendable

Kudos to the Student Government Board for its decision to take more control of the Student… Kudos to the Student Government Board for its decision to take more control of the Student Activities Fee.

The board voted Thursday in favor of changes to the allocations process of Student Life-affiliated groups, including Black Action Society, Asian Student Alliance, Resident Student Association, Interfraternity Council, National Panhellenic Council and Pan-Hellenic Council.

The new process requires the six organizations – which all have full-time advisers – to submit budget modification requests when they want to spend allocated money on events not approved in the initial budget.

The way the system was set up last year, these groups did not have to seek SGB’s approval to shift money around in their budgets, needing only their advisers’ OK on changes.

Although the board cited no specific examples of past misuse of funds, the possibility was there, and the changes are appropriate. Now the board has oversight over the money it allocates, unlike with the previous process, which nearly gave the large groups blank checks to spend however they pleased.

It’s worth mentioning, though, that these groups still have certain privileges not granted to smaller student organizations. For small changes – such as substituting one speaker for another for the same amount of money – the groups would need only their advisers’ approval, and would not have go through SGB.

The changes make a lot of sense, but what doesn’t make sense is some of the criticism SGB is taking in response to them. At Thursday’s board meeting, some student leaders argued that they should be allowed to submit requests for supplemental funding.

However, the way the allocations process works makes supplemental requests undesirable. In the new system, these six groups are granted a certain amount of money at the beginning of the fiscal year, and it’s up to them to figure out how to move money around if something doesn’t go as planned. Then they just need SGB’s approval on the changes, giving the board the accountability it needs to monitor spending.

If the system were to include supplemental requests, the cap on a particular group’s funding would still be the same, but the group wouldn’t be given as much in the initial budget. Then, the group would have to go to the board for any additional funding, and wouldn’t be guaranteed to get the money later, as it could have been allocated to other groups by that point. So it’s much better to get all the money upfront in a line-item budget, then go to the board to shift the money later if necessary.

All in all, changing the system was a sound decision, providing proper checks and balances for spending the Student Activities Fee. If SGB is to be responsible for allocating students’ money, it’s good that they have accountability for the funds.

Next up: accountability for its own spending. A flaw that the allocations process still contains is that the board has the ability to override the allocations committee’s recommendations for large sums of money, allowing the board to grant itself money without oversight by an external authority.

While the board is making changes to refine the allocations process, it should consider a method to guard against potential misuse of funding by the board itself, just as it now requires of other student organizations.