By Hannah Gray
In the aftermath of a reduced spring ASUP budget, student clubs are scurrying to find other ways to raise money they did not get.
Or in some cases, changing their plans.
The clubs and organizations initially requested roughly $422,000 for various activities and events this semester. ASUP only had $195,000 to give.
Most clubs received less funding than they requested, and in the case of the East Africa Program, no funding at all.
The East Africa Program is a Moreau Center trip to Kenya planned to take place in July. The program will have to fundraise, but as for the moment, the trip is still on, according to Laura Goble, the Director for the Moreau Center for Service. The program requested $7,000, a third of the entire cost, and received no funding.
The program will shorten the amount of time they will spend in Africa, and less people are going to go in order tomake the trip more financially feasible.
"This is certainly not just due to the ASUP budget situation, but the limitations of the Moreau Center budget and obvious larger economic issues," Goble said.
The Philosophy Club did receive more funding than they had requested. The club requested $700 to bring a highly regarded slam and hip-hop poet, Shihan, to campus for a poetry slam. Instead, the club received close to $1,600. The club is teaming up with the Feminist Discussion Group and the English Society to collect the money needed to bring the poet to campus.
The only club to receive full funding from ASUP is UP Women's Water Polo.
"We had other groups on board. It helped that we were prepared," Kaycie Rueter, Philosophy Club's president, said in regards to the extra funding for Shihan.
Rueter is appreciative of what the Philosophy Club was able to get, understanding that many clubs were short funded.
ASUP Treasurer Ben Taketa said this semester's reduced budget is the result of an oversight that was caught by ASUP budget officials last September. The result was fewer dollars available to allocate available to student groups than originally thought.
Another reason there are even fewer funds available for student clubs is the 10 additional organizations asking for money, Taketa said.
Consequently, the spring semester's budget deliberations were more intense than in years past. Student Activities Director Jeromy Koffler said the December discussion was the first time in recent history that budget deliberations have extended into finals week.
Taketa said the finance committee approached the budget chasm by making a number of standardizations first. Among those were decisions to cut food expenses and to pay for one conference per organization. The committee created other spending limits, such as capping airfare reimbursements for students traveling to plunges and conferences.
The senators focused on reallocating various club funding that they thought appropriate.
Other clubs, like UP Crew, were short ended, being forced to raise more than $4,000. The short budget has affected UP Crew immensely. Even their equipment repairs have to come completely out-of-pocket, according to UP Crew President Leslie Eddy.
"We can't pay our coaches what they're worth, we can't buy the boat we've been working to buy for two years now, we can't attend two of our regular races, and we can't practice as often," Eddy said.
Eddy suggested that every club should get a percentage of what it asks for, rather than the delegation that occurred.
The International Club, known for its multicultural dinners, adapted well to the shortfall of funds.
"The thing with International Club is that we will try our best to make events happen regardless of money," Dhieu Arok, the International Club president, said. "Money from ASUP won't stop us from doing what we as a club need to do."
The International Club didn't get funded for all of its events, but the club will focus on how to fund the others through new ways of fundraising.
Taketa said there is no interest in raising the student activities fee to offset the budget shortfall.
Taketa also said that the finance committee for ASUP is taking a close look at ways to prevent a carryover problem such as this one in future budgets.
The treasurer is preparing a proposal that allows carry-over from each semester to be put into an endowment fund. The money will collect interest over time, slightly increasing the amount each semester. Taketa thinks this is important so that ASUP never comes up against this issue again because it will continually have money to tap into.
