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Crystal Lee, outgoing Community Service commissioner, asked the council for two $10,000 grants th

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UCLA students visit Mark Twain Middle School in Venice as a part of Women and Youth Supporting Ea

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.