SABC in process of deciding RSO funds

     The Student Activities Budget Committee will be meeting in the next couple weeks and will be determining the appropriation of student activities funds to all RSOs that applied for it.
     The SABC is a Student Affairs Advisory Group made up of students representing the student body with the purpose to effectively utilize the Student Activities Fee paid every semester.
     “The way it works is that there is a lot of money in a pot, and the SGA execs have to determine where it should go,” Ryan Greene, SGA president and SABC chairman, said.
     The SABC is comprised of the six Student Government executives (the vice-president, the president pro tempore, the secretary, the treasurer, the attorney-general and the president is the chair) that will be holding the office in the fall. These six individuals are responsible for the allocation of thousands of student dollars.
     The key to an RSO getting the money it needs or wants is in the proposal. Each RSO desiring funding must submit a formal proposal to SABC detailing the basic who, what, where, when and why of how the money will be used.
     “The proposal says what they (the RSO) needs and why and shows their budget for last year and next year and where the money goes,” said Greene. “Each group will then individually meet with the Board and we will discuss whether they should get the money or not.”
     Though, not just any group can apply for money for any old reason. The group must be an RSO on campus (Sweetwater Festival being one of the few exceptions) and must meet several criteria in their proposal. Essential criteria for obtaining funding from SABC are (1) the program must be of general benefit to the student body and participation in the program must be open to all interested students and (2) the program must be one which the sponsoring organization is clearly better able to present than any other campus organization already being funded.
     Student funding to an RSO comes with the understanding that the events and students using the money will uphold the good standing of the university. That being said, it is not often that RSOs will come up empty when applying for money.
     “(An RSO) is rarely turned down completely,” Greene said.    “This is only my second year on the board and first as chair, but very few times have I seen an RSO turned down.”
     A huge advantage to gaining money from SABC is effective and efficient use of past funds. Greene stated that an RSO that uses only a small percentage of the funds given the previous year is less likely to get nearly as much this year. Older RSOs that have a longer history and maybe a leader that has effectively used the student money in the past couple years will be more likely to gain funding than a newer RSO that SABC has no way of being sure that student money will be most ably used.
     “Recurring RSOs coming (a couple) years in a row will usually get the funding, but there are exceptions” Greene said. “We are not going to assume anything.”
     Greene went on to explain that SABC must assume there will be a change in leadership inside the RSO and described the allocation as a “crapshoot, unfortunately.”
     “After hearing each proposal, we (the Board) must go through each one and determine the amount to be given,” Greene said. “After we go through each one, we check and see if we are still in budget … it takes a huge toll on the SGA execs.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 11 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry