In an attempt to save money, the Student Council Appropriations Committee has adopted a new process of allocating funds to qualified Contracted Independent Organizations. The Committee heard from over 350 CIOs applying for funding from Student Council last night and will continue the process tonight.
Council lost money last year when many CIOs requested and received money for events they later were unable to carry out, Vice President for Student Organizations Rebecca Keyworth said.
The Appropriations Committee has changed the appropriations process by dividing all of the CIOs applying for student activity fee money into two groups -- those that will receive annual funds and those that will receive money on a rolling basis.
The funding that the Committee provides to CIOs is divided into operations costs -- such as office supplies -- and travel and activity costs, which include mileage reimbursement and CIO events.
The CIOs that receive rolling funding will be allocated money for their operation costs for next year and can request funding for their travel and activity costs a month in advance of a trip, Appropriations Committee co-Chair Michael Love said.
Most of the CIOs applying for student activity fee money will be funded on a rolling basis, Appropriations Committee co-Chair Pete Skelly said.
"This gives groups a lot of flexibility instead of having to plan all of their events out already," he said.
CIOs wishing to be funded on an annual basis must submit a one-page essay to the Appropriations Committee explaining why they wish to be funded on an annual basis.
"They need to know in advance all of the activities they are going to do, because they won't be given a second chance [to receive annual funding]," Skelly said.
About 80 of the nearly 360 CIOs applying for money will be approved for annual funding this year, Love said.
"We try to look at the history of the group and see how dependable the group is in terms of spending," he said.
Many of the groups that qualify for annual funding are either publications that are able to anticipate how many issues they will produce or club sports teams that play the same tournaments on an annual basis, Skelly said.
The Appropriations Committee hopes to undergo additional changes next year, putting applications for student activity fees online, Love said.
"It's going to be very difficult to manage the system on a rolling basis next year with the system and paper and e-mails that we use now," he said.
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