By Leslie Eddy
Anyone who has been at an ASUP Senate meeting during budgeting time knows how stressful these meetings can be.
During the budget process last semester, I tried repeatedly to get a senator (any senator) to speak on my behalf - but the debate was so hectic and nerve-racking that none of them would speak for me.
I was simply asking for too much money and not a single one of the senators in the room was comfortable making my request when the atmosphere was so tense.
The Finance Committee puts a lot of hard work into creating the budget every semester, and they and the ASUP Senate work very hard at spreading the money around as equitably as they can.
This semester in particular, they all tried to be conscious of clubs' needs and tried to make sure no one was hit too hard by the lack of funds.
But for all their hard work, there were still a vast number of inconsistencies still too many unfair allocations. Some of the reasons why:?
Clubs request too much
Some are used to getting every single cost covered by ASUP. Some request much more than they need purposefully, in the hopes that what they're eventually granted will still cover everything.
Many club leaders are inexperienced and simply don't care to learn how to estimate their costs accurately. Take a look at ASUP's official record of club spending.
You'd be surprised at how many clubs are left at the end of each semester with 80 to 100 percent of their money unspent!?
ASUP does not treat the budget with the priority it should
There are simply too many line items for the Finance Committee to thoroughly review alone and way too many for the senate to deal with in just two meetings at the end of the semester.
The budget is the Senate's most important job, yet it only devotes about five hours to it.
Every semester, the budget gets pushed aside for things like reallocations or resolutions or other Senate business, making the whole process even more stressful and less effective.
They're never going to be able to comb the budget thoroughly and make sure they're treating clubs fairly if they don't make the budget debate a higher priority and give senators more time.
The budget debate is poorly ?organized and executed
The senators take a copy of the proposed budget home and are supposed to come to the next meeting with suggestions.
Then during the "discussion" portion of the budget meetings, they dump all these suggestions at once.
Scattered, fragmented discussion occurs on whatever topics any senator or club representative chooses to bring up, and no issue is settled before someone jumps in with another point to make.
Once "debate" begins, clubs can no longer represent themselves and they are forced to sit there biting their fingernails in the hopes that someone will remember to bring up the point they made 30 minutes ago.
It's a complete mess - a free-for-all in which too many clubs' requests are completely forgotten.?The Finance Committee has no system to differentiate what clubs need from what they want
Clubs indicate which of their costs are the most important to them, but it's still very hard to get an idea of what certain costs really mean to the clubs that request them. Some clubs only requested funds that are absolutely necessary in order for the club to exist, and cover other costs themselves. But other clubs request items that aren't necessarily crucial to their survival.
The way the budgeting process stands, there is no clear way to tell the difference between requests that are absolute necessities and those that are just conveniences.
In recognizing so many clubs and allowing them access to club funds, ASUP and Student Activities essentially pledge that they have the means to fund that club to exactly the same proportion they fund every other club.
They acknowledge the minimum cost of each club's existence and agree to take that maybe we need to recognize fewer clubs, or maybe we can cover only a portion of clubs' needs - but no club should be recognized if ASUP is not willing to fund exactly the same percentage of its essential costs as every single recognized club at UP.
Yes, some clubs are more expensive than others. Some believe this justifies the fact that they get such a small percentage of their basic needs met by ASUP. But in recognizing these clubs and recognizing the costs involved, ASUP agreed to treat them just like any other club on campus - and that means, whether funds are tight or not, that they should be prepared to cover the same percentage of every club's needs - no more and no less.
