Initiating a series of reforms that Student Council President Noah Sullivan calls the most important issues on Council's agenda this semester, Council Vice President for Organizations Rebecca Keyworth presented three plans last night to reform Council's appropriations process.
"The system we have now was developed years ago for a smaller number of student groups," Keyworth said. "We have over 300 groups now, and there's a lot of inefficiency in our current system."
A task force of students and administrators met over the summer to research appropriations processes at other universities and non-profit organizations. The task force then formulated three possible systems of appropriating funds.
The first plan proposes that Council classify each student organization in different categories, such as club sports, fine arts and service. Council's representative body would then allocate certain percentages of the total student activities fund to each of the ten categories. Organizations would then go through the classic appropriations process and get funds from the money set out for their categories.
The second plan proposes that the representative body set criteria by which applications for funds would be reviewed, including the size and past fiscal performance of the organization requesting funds. Council would also choose areas of emphasis on a yearly basis, such as cultural awareness, civic participation and academic life. Organizations would be permitted to submit grant requests at any time during the year. Under this plan, the representative body would consider appeals on a monthly basis.
The third proposal involves the division of the student activities fund into operational, travel and activity expenditures for all student organizations applying for funds. CIOs would submit separate budgets for the three categories of expenditures. These submitted budgets would be reviewed by appropriations subcommittees. The organizations would then have the opportunity to appeal their grants.
Sullivan emphasized the significance of appropriations reform.
"It is the most important thing that we work on this semester and probably the year," Sullivan said. "For the first time, the right people and the right ideas have come together to tackle this problem. We need to make sure our new process serves the students."
According to Council Director of University Relations Peter Farrell, Council will publicize the proposals in order to get feedback.
"We plan on going around to CIOs and talk to them about issues, including the appropriations process," he said.
Farrell added that there would be a forum to discuss appropriations.
Keyworth said the current system would be in place for fall appropriations but a new proposal would be formulated by the end of the current semester.
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