SGA slashes student groups’ budgets

CORRECTION: Due to a source error the following story inaccurately stated the amount of money the organization will be allocating to club sports. The Student Government Association will give $308,955 to Campus Recreation Services to support club sports. This story has been altered to reflect this.

Student groups may be forced to collaborate more next year after most saw slashed budgets and drastic decreases in SGA funding.

Overall, student organizations received less than a quarter of the finances they requested in primary funding for next year, according to Student Government Association Vice President of Finance Rob Mutschler.

About 300 groups, including the 42 sports organizations that will be handled for the first time by Campus Recreation Servies, requested a total of more than $3 million, but the SGA only had about $730,000 to dole out. That means the SGA had about $200,000 less than they did last year to distribute to student organizations.

"I think that's going to severely hinder the quality of programs," said SGA Director of Student Groups Kaiyi Xie, who is running for SGA president. "I think next year is going to be really important for the student groups to work together and put on events together, and that means that the SGA needs to provide the infrastructure for them to do so."

The 42 student sports clubs have not received their budgets yet, Mutschler said, because their budgets are now handled separately by Campus Recreation Services. Once those clubs are funded, the SGA will have given out an additional $308,955.

The finance committee used a slightly different system for cutting funds than last year, Mutschler said. In previous years, the groups that requested the most money received the highest cuts. But because of the SGA's overall decreased funding, every group was submitted the same percentage cut this year, regardless of how much they requested.

Student groups are able to appeal the SGA's funding cuts, and Mutschler said he expects many will, given the large number of groups affected by the cuts.

"After seeing the numbers, I expect a lot of student groups to be disappointed with their allocations," Mutschler said.

Xie said student groups that try to appeal the body's fund allocation will likely be rejected.

"In order for an appeal to be successful, they have to prove that the rule that was used was unfair or why it was incorrectly applied," Xie said.

Pride Alliance President Spencer Brennen said his group requested $35,000 — which he said he did not expect to receive all of — but was only allocated $6,299, an amount he said is enough to fund only Pride Month. The group was given $9,000 last year for the event alone, he said.

Brennen said he hopes other groups will co-sponsor his organization's events, though he doesn't expect them to because every group sustained huge losses.

"Most groups are not going to be able or willing to fund other groups' activities because no one has any money," Brennen said. "I think it's just going to require a lot of student groups to work really, really hard in collaboration."

Crystal Varkalis, vice president of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, said her club also only received a fraction of the funding it requested. She said it's not likely any co-sponsorship will allow SSDP to host high-caliber events.

"I think we got enough to cover our three most expensive speakers' honorariums that we try to have each semester and that's about it," Varkalis said.

She said the funding cut usually wouldn't sting so badly because SSDP co-sponsors events with NORML Terps. But both groups' budgets were slashed this year, Varkalis said, leaving them wondering how to fund next semester's events.

Xie, who is running for SGA president on the Action Party ticket, said this is exactly what he's worried about.

"What I don't want to see is student groups to try and charge for their events because that makes it less accessible, and I know it's going to be very tempting," Xie said.

Prior to starting the finance process in March, the SGA set aside $60,000 in the Group Help Fund for appeals. While Mutschler said he hopes most of that fund will last through the appeals process so next year's body will be able to assist fledgling groups, Xie said some groups, such as MaryPIRG and WMUC Radio, will likely eat up a good chunk of that funding in appeals because their initial requests were so large.

meehan at umdbk dot com