Last night, the Senate and Treasury met in a joint session to debate the 2012-2013 Student Union General Budget. After deliberating for over four hours, the legislature approved the General Budget as presented.
However, the budget we approved sets a remarkable, and potentially dangerous, precedent.
First, allow me to give some background as I understand it. In the Spring 2012 Student Union Elections last March, the Student Sustainability Fund appealed for $15,000 of block funding. With the SSF being a group that, in my opinion, brings value to the student body, I personally voted in the affirmative. But because supermajority of students did not approve of the item, and so according to Article IX, Section 4 of the SU Constitution, the SSF did not receive block funding.
The SSF was one of several student groups every year that apply for block funding and fail to receive it. In the past, these groups have proceeded to apply for funding as student groups directly through the Treasury, and this is how the SU Constitution says it should work.
However, this time, the SU Executive Council decided to allocate $3000 of the General Budget to the SSF, amounting to 20% of the amount for which they appealed. It appeared as a line item partway down page 135 of the SU General Budget. Here is the official justification:
“The SSF was block funded last year, but did not receive block funding for the upcoming year. However, as it still received high student support, (U)nity decided that it deserved funding from the Student Activities Fee. This $3000 shall go to funding projects that students desire to carry out, and therefore is money that goes directly back to the students.”
On the surface, this sounds great. As a matter of fact, it took a fellow legislator in Treasury to first bring to my attention the underlying consequences of this proposal. The problem is that this sets a precedent: if a group applying for block funding fails to receive it, if the Executive Council feels that your group "deserve[s] funding" despite the outcome of the election, that group can expect to receive some of the amount for which you appealed directly in the General Budget!
Some would argue that this is a welcome change: having a majority of student vote for block funding and yet having that group receive $0 is pretty harsh. However, the General Budget is not the place to set precedents. If Executive Council wants to see this aspect of block funding changed, they should propose a constitutional amendment to the legislature. It is improper to set this precedent as an earmark in the General Budget.
Additionally, the SSF was not the only group that failed to receive block funding this year. KWUR, Washington University's student-run radio station, also appealed for funding and failed to receive it. (In fact, KWUR received a higher proportion of "yes" votes than the SSF.) But nowhere in the 147-page General Budget was KWUR allocated 20% of the amount for which they applied! In this sense, not only did the General Budget set a precedent with allocating money to a group that failed to receive block funding, but it was also inconsistent with doing so.
It is for the above reasons that I voted no on the General Budget. I ended up being the only Senator to do so.
That being said, I want to stress a few things. First of all, I have nothing whatsoever against the Student Sustainability Fund. I personally think that they deserve at least the $3000 for which they were allocated. Second, I did approve of over 95% of the remaining money that was allocated in the budget. The allocation of funds is not why I voted against the budget: it is because of the dangerous precedent that it sets for future groups who apply for block funding.
It will be interesting to see how this precedent plays out in the future.
