Monday, September 29, 1997
USAC funds groups a month late
BUDGET: Interfraternity Council claims bias in money-allocation
process
By Stefanie Wong
Daily Bruin Staff
With money in hand and base budgets approved, student government
offices and student-advocacy groups can now begin regular
operations for the 1997-98 academic year.
The approval of the Undergraduate Student Association Council’s
budget came in early September, a month past the deadline.
This summer’s controversial issue of the USAC stipend increase
delayed the council from finalizing the amounts budgeted to the
council offices and SAGs.
"Office stipends are one line item and because that line item
wasn’t figured out, we couldn’t figure out the funds that could go
to the student groups," said Budget Review Committee Chair Alina
Tso.
This year, the BRC had $182,395 that could be budgeted to 13
student-council offices and 21 SAGs. In competition for those
funds, council offices and SAGs requested a total of $852,861.
But because of limited funds, the organizations could not
receive all the money requested and the amount given to the
organizations was cut down to $180,895.
In some areas, guidelines were established in order to ensure
efficiency and accuracy during the budgeting process.
For example, each group submitted a proposal during the summer
and went through a series of hearings and deliberations in order
for the BRC to assess how much each organization would receive.
Also, the Rally Committee, the Panhellenic Council and
Interfraternity Council were denied any base budget funding from
USAC. Base budgets are monies used for administrative costs,
supplies, postage and advertisements for the organization or
council office.
According to Tso, these three organizations did not receive the
money they requested because USAC is not their primary source of
funding.
"We as a committee decided that any organizations that get
funding from other sources would not get money from USAC," Tso
added.
The Rally Committee receives money from the Student Affairs
office and the Panhellenic Council and IFC receive membership dues
from the fraternity and sorority houses.
"We don’t fund them because they receive fees assessed from each
house. That is money that members are required to pay in order to
be in the organizations," Tso said.
However, IFC President Brett Bouttier says that IFC does not
receive mandatory money from the fraternity houses.
Instead, because IFC has not received a base budget from USAC
over the past few years, the organization has had to ask the
membership fraternity houses to contribute money in order to create
a budget.
Money can only be given to IFC through a majority vote from the
fraternity presidents and then, that money is only used for
educational programs, Bouttier said.
"It’s stated in the IFC constitution that our primary force of
funding is a USAC allocated base budget. They assert that because
we haven’t had a budget in the past and we’ve been able to go to
the fraternities to augment that, it’s our main source. But in
fact, it is a reactionary source of funding because our primary
source was not fulfilled," Bouttier said.
In an effort to appeal the decision made by the BRC, Bouttier
made a presentation during the Sept. 9 council meeting, hoping that
USAC would be able to help.
However, the budget was approved without any changes to the BRC
recommendations. The BRC continued to say that IFC was not given a
base budget because they receive money from another source.
"The only reason that BRC will provide me (for denying funding)
is that we are self-funded through mandatory fees," Bouttier said.
"And this assertion is incorrect."
"Since that reason is flawed, there is no other reason that they
have for not giving us the base budget besides the fact that they
don’t like our organization," he added. "And those issues don’t
belong in the budgeting process."
However, Tso says that the BRC was not biased in the base budget
recommendations, and that it used established guidelines to decide
how much each organization would receive.
Also, she said, there are avenues organizations could take if
they are unhappy with the allocations. She added that IFC’s direct
approach of meeting with USAC was the improper way to go about
addressing their grievances.
Several council members have agreed to assist and work with IFC
in finding sources of funding for the year and Bouttier has already
met with USAC President Kandea Mosley.
However, Bouttier has plans on approaching the Judicial Board
later in the quarter and appealing USAC’s decision.