TO THE EDITOR:
This Tuesday, I attended the vote Student Congress held for a bill to cut the student body vice president’s stipend. Since I have no official position within student government, I sat in a corner and listened to arguments for and against the bill.
I noticed that a lot of the arguments in favor of the bill pertained to having more money available for student organizations.
The problem is not the total amount of money available (let’s face it, there will never be enough money to satisfy demand). The problem is with how the money is allocated.
The chair of the finance committee consistently cited this example: a student organization emailed her requesting $25 for printing fees and she could not give it because the committee was out of money for the year.
The issue is not that appropriations ran out of money, it’s that appropriations ran out of money this early in the year. Appropriation funds should be better managed throughout the year.
Reasonable changes would include separating request periods by semester rather than year to allow organizations to better forecast funding needs in the spring and establishing a petty cash account for the purpose of fulfilling small requests.
Instead of managing the money it has, congress cut a well-deserved stipend in a futile attempt to solve the problem. This is why I ask congress to overhaul the appropriations process rather than continue to cut stipends throughout student government.
Corey Crawford ’14
Business administration
