USAC funds groups a month late

Monday, September 29, 1997

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.