Nearly $3 million in mandatory student fees flows through the undergraduate student government each year, and much of this money is allocated by the council to student organizations.
But some student groups feel they do not receive adequate funds and question how other groups are using the money.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council offers a number of funding resources to student groups, such as the Student Organization Operational Fund, the USAC/Associated Students UCLA Programming Fund, the contingency fund, the contingency capital fund and funds from the individual offices of USAC members.
Academic Affairs Commissioner Nat Schuster said the Student Organization Operational Fund and the USAC/ASUCLA fund are the largest funding sources for student organizations.
Schuster said that in order to receive funding, groups must submit a paper application including a description of the group, how it will use the money and a breakdown of expenses.
But some groups said the application process for funding, particularly the requisition forms to receive their allocated funds, can be challenging.
Shawn Chuong Do, president of the Vietnamese Student Union at UCLA, said he struggled with the process.
“It’s not that easy. It’s a process that has multiple steps and you have to go through it yourself to understand how it works,” he said. He said he believes digitalizing the requisition forms would allow USAC members to look more critically at how the funds are being spent and make the necessary improvements in the allocation process.
Some students said they believe their groups do not receive a fair amount of funding since certain groups are allocated very little money while others receive enough to fund group retreats and stipends for their officers.
Tara Chowdhury, treasurer of the Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth at UCLA, said she did not know that other groups used their funding this way and did not think it was fair.
“It’s kind of frustrating. … We often don’t get enough money and have to dip into our own pockets or donations,” she said.
Jerry Mann, director of ASUCLA Student Support Services, said the student government accounting reports do not include individual line items or a detailed breakdown of a student organization’s expenses. But he said this should not be a concern because more groups are applying for funding and thus receive smaller allocations that may not warrant specific breakdowns.
He also said though his office does not compare specific expenses detailed in the application to what a group actually purchases, they do check documentation to make sure organizations’ spending is reasonable and funds are not misused. Mann said he believes this provides sufficient oversight of the allocation process.
Schuster said that in order to ensure fairness, a number of reforms were made this year to cut down spending on items such as retreats and conferences.
USAC Internal Vice President Gregory Cendana said that with the Student Government Accounting Office, the Budget Review chairperson and the Finance chair all reviewing USAC funds, he did not have many concerns about the management of the money.
“They’re making sure that the money is being spent on what it was initially allocated for,” Cendana said.
Mann said one of the goals of his office is to put the funding application and the requisition forms online in order to make the process easier for student groups, though no concrete plans have yet been made to implement this.
USAC has worked to make the process fair and understandable for student groups, Cendana said.
“We try to make the process transparent as possible so that all organizations understand how it is they get their funding,” he said.
USAC will be distributing a funding information guide for student leaders at the orientation for student group leaders in the fall. Schuster said he expects the guide will include information on all funding sources available on campus, not just the USAC funds.
“The problem right now is that some funding sources are over-applied to and others are under-applied to. (The funding information guide) would enable every student group to know about every funding source available to their organization,” he said.