The passage of the PULSE referendum will not only prevent debt
due to budget cuts, but will also allow groups not to fund-raise as
heavily and keep them from having to dig deeper into USAC’s
surplus funds, groups say.
PULSE, which stands for Promoting Understanding and Learning
through Service and Education, was passed by a student vote two
weeks ago. The fee that will go into effect next fall is a
mandatory $6.50 per student per quarter toward outreach and
community service, which adds to $19.50 a year per student, and
will raise an estimated $732,478.50 total.
PULSE’s fee was calculated by adding the total debt of the
groups it benefits.
Groups say PULSE funds next year will allow them to focus on
service rather than funding, as they had to this year, and help
them cope with further cuts. This year, groups dealt with fee
shortages by scaling down, heavy fund-raising and asking the
Undergraduate Students Association Council for additional
funds.
According to budget reports, USAC had a surplus of approximately
$100,000 at the end of last year in funds remaining from all
student groups, which goes back to USAC to form a discretionary
fund, and covers student groups’ needs and emergencies the
following year.
Some community service and outreach groups like the Community
Service Commission have to raise funds in order to exist, while
others only do so for additional programming.
The Student Retention Center, which works to increase the
retention rates of UCLA students, has already projected where PULSE
money will be spent. The center targets minorities, but its
services are available to all students. Representatives said they
raise funds, but predominantly for additional programming.
“Our center is growing, and in order to have more
counselors we need extra money to fund,” said Linda Tran, a
second-year sociology student and peer counselor at the center.
She said the PULSE money is necessary to maintain the retention
center’s level of operation.
“Without it we could still run, but we would be going in
debt as years go on. PULSE maintains our projects and
office,” Tran said.
The money that the four groups will receive from PULSE will help
make up for the budget cuts they have endured in the past
years.
Budget cuts were supposed to cut funding to UCLA community
groups, which include outreach, by 100 percent. Groups such as the
Student Initiated Outreach Committee received 20 percent of their
original budget, said Diem Tran, a third-year philosophy student,
and chair of the committee.
The committee, which already benefits from a 1999 referendum
that raised student fees $5 a quarter, also received 75 percent of
its funding from the federal government, which is now being
cut.
“The money from the PULSE referendum is supposed to come
in simply to fill in what our total budget used to look like, and
cover our current expenditures before the state budget crisis
happened,” Diem Tran said.
The SIOC will be using PULSE money to finance their bare minimum
expenses, such as transportation, copying materials, and the core
administrators, she said.
Diem Tran believes the committee would go into debt if they did
not have the help of PULSE next year. “A lot of our services
would be reduced drastically or significantly in extreme cases. We
would have to shut down entire projects which would mean
we’re taking away the services from anywhere to 100 plus
students,” she said.
Because of PULSE, groups will be able to focus their time on
developing their programs, rather than fund-raising, Tran said.
“We are more importantly increasing the quality of student
services.”
The Community Service Commission’s budget this year
required them to raise funds heavily and to ask for two $10,000
grants from the USAC surplus fund, said Crystal Lee, this
year’s Community Service commissioner.
Lee said as of the end of winter quarter, the CSC had raised 80
percent of its total goal of $78,000, and said this year the group
should just about cover its debt.
But fund-raising is taxing on CSC’s project participants,
volunteers say.
Jen Minami, a fourth-year psychology student and research and
education director for Project Literacy, said fund-raising this
year was difficult and required volunteers to focus on fund-raising
rather than volunteering.
“It takes a lot of effort to organize a fund-raiser. …
And fund-raisers aren’t always guaranteed, either,” she
said, referring to the sometimes disappointing results.
Lee said next year under PULSE, the CSC will still raise funds,
but she hopes it will be minimal compared to this year.
“We’ll still do it, but it won’t have to be to
the same extent as this year because this year was crazy,”
she said.
All groups will benefit from the additional fees under PULSE,
Lee said, because it will increase the cap on each group’s
base budget from the Community Activities Commission, and increase
the CSC’s mini-fund.
The fund groups apply for additional funding if they spend over
their budget, which this year was $8,500.
Lee said she also hopes PULSE will prevent groups from having to
petition for additional funds from the USAC surplus fund.
At the end of last year, the CSC had a surplus of $15,000. Lee
said this would typically go back into USAC’s general fund,
unless they ask to keep it, which she did.
The CSC was granted $10,000 to buy a new van when a new state
law barred driving 15-passenger vans without a special permit. They
sold their old van and combined the money with surplus funds to
purchase a new one, and returned $5,000 to USAC.
Groups like the CSC are reluctant to ask for money from the USAC
surplus because its purpose is to help other student groups and to
cover emergency unexpected costs, Lee said, citing the Roots
concert as an event that incurred a greater cost than expected.
“The way I look at it, the more money we ask for from the
USAC surplus, the more money that’s taken away from other
student groups,” she said.
But Lee added that any surplus funds the CSC receives always go
back toward the projects its volunteers work with.
Last spring, the CSC received additional funds from the
Community Activities Commission, which expected budget cuts but did
not experience any. The activities commission then allocated $3,300
to each of the 21 projects. All of these groups spent their funds
on field trips and buying supplies such as books, Lee said.