Officials clash over extra SGA funding

Despite a heated debate over where the money should come from, the SGA voted Wednesday night to allocate itself an additional $6,300 to their current budget of $44,178 for several programs planned for next semester.

The Student Government Association was the only student group this semester to appeal to the full legislature for additional funding. Although SGA Vice President of Finance Andrew Steinberg vehemently opposed the appeal, calling it fiscally irresponsible, SGA President Steve Glickman said the additional money is necessary to put on three programs intended for next semester.

Steinberg said the SGA's reserves — a mandatory pool of money taken out of student activity fees annually and granted to the SGA to support their programs — are more than enough to pay for Glickman's initiatives.

The current mandated funding is approximately $60,000, Steinberg said, adding that no other student organization has a mandated pool of money available to it. The SGA has the largest budget of any student group.

"Student Government Association has its reserves specifically so that SGA can fulfill its mission as the governing body of the undergraduate students," Steinberg said. "[It] has the ability to fund these programs, like it has in the past... through the reserves. That is the purpose of these reserves — as an adequate funding source."

The programs planned for the spring include a multi-cultural expo, in which student groups will have a chance next semester to showcase their diversity through performances and presentations; an academic "Second Look Fair" and a student group awards event that Glickman said has been put on for the past two years.

"By allocating additional funds outside of the reserves, it's a fiscally irresponsible practice because the Student Government Association has these resources already available to them," Steinberg said.

But Glickman said the reserves aren't meant for those purposes.

"The reserves aren't meant for that. The reserves are unlined on purpose for initiatives that current students and SGA — they use them for their initiatives," he said. "Those aren't legislative initiatives, those are programs that SGA puts on."

Although Glickman admitted that it is possible for the programs to be funded through reserves, he insisted that the reserves have another purpose. He said in order to use the reserve fund to foot the bill for these programs, a legislator would have to write a bill for each and present it to the legislative body.

Steinberg emphasized the large amount of money given to the SGA puts other student groups at an unfair disadvantage, while the SGA itself is left yearly with a surplus of funding. During the primary allocation for student group funding in the spring, the SGA awarded student groups $471,873 out of the $876,376 requested.

"For the past four years, five years, SGA has not spent all the money it is allocated," Steinberg said. "In fact, for the past three years, leftover money has been about $40,000... [the finance committee] didn't feel it was necessary to provide supplementary funding for these programs when SGA isn't using the reserves that are available."

Past SGA presidents have emphasized fiscal responsibility and cut their own budgets to put more back into the pool available for student groups, condemning the SGA's ability to ‘double-dip' by taking money out of their guaranteed reserves and then requesting more from the student group pool.

"The committee felt that we have these reserves, the Student Government Association should be using them, and should not double-dipping into requesting additional programs and have the reserves," Steinberg said.

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