This year’s appropriations process was recently completed – however, some student groups were left less than satisfied.

Each semester, the Student Senate is responsible for distributing funding to campus organizations. This funding is obtained solely from student fees. Each student pays about $10.85, according to Buddy Bryson, student body treasurer.

“Students can see most of these fees being used in the appropriations process, where about 45 percent of our annual budget goes back to student groups,” Bryson said.

According to Bryson, student groups have approximately two weeks to complete applications for funding as long as they are approved by the Student Organization Resource Center and have turned in W-9 forms and receipts from previous years if they have been previously funded.

“The appropriations committee then sits with each group, asking questions to clarify their applications if needed,” Bryson said. “Then the committee sits down in what we call mark-ups, which is where we look at every application and divide out funding.”

According to Toni Campbell, chairwoman of the appropriations committee, there are a number of factors that the committee takes into account when distributing funds.

“These considerations include, among other factors, the type of request, number of students impacted, the amount requested and overall relevance to the student body,” Campbell said.

Campbell said that student groups collectively requested $144,000 in funds this semester, and that the committee had $72,005.11 to give out.

“Unfortunately, all groups can’t be fully funded since the amount requested far exceeds the amount we had to distribute,” Campbell said.

Last fall, $85,138.24 was made available to student organizations, according to Campbell.

This year’s process was met with some difficulty, according to Campbell.

“Initially, there was some confusion over the new University requirement that all groups turn in a W-9 form,” Campbell said. “While admittedly the W-9 forms can be complicated, they are required for the IRS by law and are outside of our control.”

Campbell said that because of this, deadlines were extended to allow students to get help if needed.

Roman Torres, president of the University chapter of the American Society for Mechanical Engineers, said that while his organization applies for funding every semester, the publicity around this year’s process was lackluster.

“We had to contact [Student Government] to get the deadlines as the website was not updated at the start of the semester,” Torres said.

Torres also said that while his club received about 55 percent of the funding they requested, he thinks the overall process is “rushed.”

“The interview was very brief, less than four minutes,” Torres said. “I know there are many organizations that request funds and it must be time consuming to meet with all of them, but I don’t think many people can adequately explain why they need funding in four minutes.”

Accurate decisions on how to spend students’ money cannot be made in this short amount of time, Torres said.

“I would like to think [Student Government] puts a lot of thought into how they disperse the funding,” Torres said. “I don’t think they can make accurate decisions on how to allocate funding by giving an organization four minutes to talk about a simple budget submitted online.”

Among this issue of time spent with each organization, publicity and record-keeping were also some issues this year, according to Alyse Flick, co-president of the Pre-Health Club.

“The biggest problems with the process were in communication,” Flick said. “Numerous emails were re-sent out over the course of the process due to missing attachments or incorrect dates, times, or room numbers.”

Flick said the information about appropriations was extremely difficult to find this year.

“Appropriations were not as well-publicized as they have been in the past,” Flick said. “If you were looking for the traditional ways – on-campus publicity, the website – you couldn’t find it. We used all of these listed resources to attempt to find the application.”

The Pre-Health Club came very close to not receiving funding over receipts that had been “lost,” according to Flick.

“We were told at our appropriations appointment that our budget was up to date, our W-9 form was turned in and correct, and that our receipts were also turned in,” Flick said. “Surprisingly, on the day of the reveal, the committee emailed us saying that we had been denied funding and that we had been blacklisted for missing receipts.”

Flick said that the problem was eventually resolved, but not easily.

“The most frustrating part of this problem was that it took numerous emails from us and our representative for any clarifications to be made on the issue. It took two days before we were contacted by the treasurer with an explanation.

“In the end, the committee was reasonable in listening to and understanding our concerns about the whole process during appeals,” Flick said.

There were various responses from Student Government leaders about complaints with the process this year.

“In the past there has been more publicity around appropriations,” Bryson said. “That being said, it should never be a surprise when appropriations start or end. Our statutes clearly lay out the deadlines that each part of the process must be completed, which means from year to year, the dates remain fairly consistent.”

Campbell claimed that the same publicity procedures were used this year as in years past, despite the complaints of various student leaders.

“While we’re sympathetic to groups that were not aware of the process, nearly all of the publicity steps that are always used were used this year,” Campbell said. “The appropriations website and packet is a constant source of information linked from the SG homepage and this was in conjunction with the use of social media and an email to campus groups.”

Campbell said that Student Government takes its job in appropriations very seriously.

“Funds are based off student fees,” Campbell said. “Therefore, the committee devotes a great deal of time and thought to each decision.”

Bryson said that for next semester, student groups need to do a better job of planning ahead.

“We see every year, student groups in our offices on the last day with receipts and questions,” Bryson said. “We try to help each student group that we can, but when such a large number of students wait until the last moment, we see a lot of mistakes happening that can prevent student groups from receiving money.”