By Hannah Gray Staff Writer
A proposal to create an ASUP endowment fund, designed to generate more money for student clubs and organizations in the coming years, goes to ASUP for a vote on Monday. The senators have a variety of options for dealing with the resolution, including asking UP students to vote on the matter.
Original proponents of the endowment are asking the Senate to approve the plan as both a bylaw as well as a constitutional amendment. To become an amendment to the constitution, the plan also would need to be approved by UP students during the campus-wide election on Feb. 24-25.
The Senate has at least two other options on Monday. It could pass the endowment plan as a bylaw, which would only make the provision part of the student government financial policy.
It could also reject the endowment plan outright.
"This is a chance for all the students at UP to vote into action a financially responsible policy that will provide the generations of students after us with a wealthy student association that will be able to finance more activities," ASUP Treasurer Ben Taketa said. Taketa, along with four senators, proposed the creation of an endowment fund at the last ASUP meeting.
ASUP Vice President Allison Able said the Executive Board supports passing the measure as a bylaw and as a constitutional amendment. "Doing so would show campus-wide student support for it and make this a permanent solution," Able said. She also noted that to be overturned, a constitutional amendment requires another vote of the student body.
The proposed endowment would start with a principal amount, which would be invested and accrue interest. That interest would be allotted for clubs and organizations on top of the student fees already collected and earmarked for student groups. The principal itself would remain unspent. The principal would come from the carryover funds from this academic year.
"We have an increasing demand for funding and decreasing purchasing power," Taketa said. "This endowment will benefit the future students of UP by providing ASUP with a consistently growing source of income."
Because of inflation, as well as an increase in the number of clubs, Taketa said the endowment would act as a way to offset this imbalance, especially since ASUP doesn't want to increase student fees. Taketa said ASUP would therefore have the ability to allot organizations more money, and the miscalculation error with last year's carryover budget could be avoided in the future.
"Over the course of 20 years our organization has spent over $7 million, and we have saved nothing, not a single dollar," Taketa said.
Essentially, the endowment would make the budgeting process more efficient, Senator Elissa Regan, an endowment plan proponent, said. According to Regan, the endowment would be more efficient for two reasons. "There won't be a carryover, and it will give us an exact amount of money. We will know ahead of time how much we will have," Regan said.
The endowment would also force clubs to think of their budgets more wisely, Taketa and his colleagues said. Clubs would have to think of their events more carefully, and they'd have to be more fiscally responsible, according to Senator Jovelyn Bonilla, who also helped with the endowment proposal.
Although the endowment would provide more funding, it is important for students to realize that ASUP would not take more of their money, Regan said.
"I think the issue students must consider is do you want to invest in the future or recycle the money to use in the short term," said Jeromy Koffler, the student activities director. Koffler said he thinks because there wasn't a carryover this year, now is a good stopping point for how ASUP has operated with this funding issue.
Even people outside the realm of ASUP support the idea of an endowment.
"I think it is a great idea," said Denis Ransmeier, the finance vice president.
"It is a way for students involved in student government to see that you don't have to lose it or use it," Ransmeier said regarding the carryover funds in the past.
Ransmeier said ASUP needs to use its money wisely and to fund programs that are prudent and popular. But overall, Ransmeier said he thinks the creation of an endowment would help future generations at UP.
Also, the endowment would cut down on wasted funds. Instead, clubs and organizations would have to decide early on in the budgeting process what they want to do and how much it would cost because the endowment would eliminate the carryover.
"This resolution is about our future," Taketa said. "For years we have been allocating more money than we generate in revenue while relying heavily on unspent allocations to finance our organization. This trend is simply unsustainable."
With the interest adding to the endowment principal every year, the overall budget would grow, Taketa pointed out.
"We have wasted so much money in the past - it gets spent really quickly," ASUP President Kyle Bunch said. "The endowment will benefit ASUP overtime. It will grow a budget over time even though the student body won't increase."
If the matter goes to a student vote, it will be on the ballot along with the ASUP Executive Board candidates and Green Fund proposal.
ASUP has created a Facebook group to generate interest in the endowment called "Endow ASUP for a wealthy future" that includes information about the proposal.
Even though the students currently at UP would not significantly benefit from the endowment in the short term, the long-term effects would allow ASUP to fund more organizations and events than they do now, Taketa said.
But even in the short term, the students at UP would see some effects, such as a small amount of interest added to the budget, Taketa said.
"Short-term actions have long-term consequences, and although we can't change the past we can change the future," Taketa said.
