Student Congress' allocations explained

Show me the money! At least, that is what some student organizations may be thinking in the wake of Student Congress' release of the allocations list for the fall 2006 semester. Four organization received no funding after submitting budget proposals and several others received significantly less than previous allocation allotments. Student Congress vice-president of finance, Ian MacLeod said that the reason some of the allocations are different from previous funding is the fact that many budgets were unspecific. MacLeod, who has served on the allocations committee for five semesters, that that this semester was "by far the least impressive as far as the quality of budgets."

MacLeod said the committee was hoping to give out $160-170,000 in allocations. Instead, only $119,397 was distributed. He said that the allocation decisions were not based on an organization's number of members nor its perceived success. MacLeod specifically mentioned organizations like College Democrats, Young Economists Society and United DePauw-organizations that in the past have enjoyed thousands of dollars in student funding. Other groups, MacLeod said, like Tiger Pep Band, demonstrated misuse of funds allocated from the previous semester. The Pep Band spent most of its funding on food for its members and the trip to Memphis, Tenn. The problem with this, he said, is that the money was not spent for the benefit of the campus.

Allocation money comes from the student activity fee paid by all students at DePauw. Because the funding comes from the student body, MacLeod said, it is wrong to spend it for members' personal use.

"I, personally, would not want so so much of their dollars spent on a trip I could not go on," MacLeod said.

However, he added, though the allocations for these organizations have been severely reduced, the groups will not be strapped for funding-many of these groups had a large amounts of roll over money from the previous semester.

However, James Patton, president of United DePauw, said this is not the case with his organization. He said that United DePauw has been working with very little money for some time.

"[The allocations committee] said perhaps it could've just been an unclear budget, which, I don't think our budget was very unclear.... We did what we thought was a good budget," Patton said.

MacLeod said good budgets itemized every expense in great detail and contained no questionable spending from the previous semester.

Patton said his organization put in all its events from the past semester and all intended events for the coming semester. Because of this, he said, the low funding came as a shock.

"We were very very surprised with the amount [we received] because I think we asked upwards of $6,000 dollars, and $70 is nothing," he said. "Second semester last year we didn't get any money, and now, we're back to square one, which is really really strange for us."

However, for groups like United DePauw, MacLeod said there is still the possibility for additional funding. All the extra money that was not allocated stays in the committee's account. Student organizations can approach the committee at any time to present a case for the funding of a specific event.

-Caitlin Eichelberger contributed to this story.