About $150,000 of the funds allotted to student groups by the Student Council Appropriations Committee remains unspent each year, according to various sources.
Hundreds of contracted independent organizations (CIOs) receive funds from Council's Appropriations Committee every year. The committee relies on money from the Student Activity Fee to fund the CIOs, said Christina Morell, assistant vice president for student affairs.. The fee is currently $47 for full-time students, according to the Undergraduate Record,
SAF funds are first designated to fixed commitments such as Madison House and Student Legal Services, while the balance is used to fund CIOs.
Oftentimes, the student groups do not use all of the money allotted to them, Student Activities Business Manager Bill Hancher said. About a quarter of last year's money was left unspent, and about a third of the groups, or 300 groups total, never claimed a penny. The amount of money left unspent has been on the rise over the past few years, added Hancher, an administrator who oversees the accounts.
The money which a CIO does not spend rolls over to the SAF fund to be re-appropriated for the next year if it remains unspent on Jun. 30 when the books close for each academic year, according to Bill Ashby, director of Newcomb Hall. There are well defined rules and accounting governing the use of SAF funds, Ashby added, and money collected for that purpose is never redirected.
However, "it's really in the best interest of CIOs to spend it [that year]," said Rebecca Keyworth, Student Council vice president for organizations.
Both Keyworth and Hancher cited poor communication among CIOs as a reason for the large amounts of money left over each year.
"There's bad communication within the groups with CIO officers," Hancher said. "They transition and don't tell [the new officers] that this money is there."
Hancher named several groups as having unspent funds last year. However, Schon Williams, Darden student and treasurer of Darden Health Care Club, was surprised to find that his group had been mentioned.
"We tried, but we did not get any money," Williams said about the appropriations process.
Hancher cited Williams group as an example of the effects of poor communication within a CIO, reiterating that the club did have funds allocated to them and that they were never used.
To ease the process of dealing with appropriations and to make sure that CIOs spend their money efficiently, Council initiated a rolling appropriations system last semester, according to Keyworth.
The process allows CIOs to apply for money throughout the entire year, rather than apply annually with a year-long budget prepared, Keyworth explained.
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