TO THE EDITOR:
In his letter to the editor on Thursday, Corey Crawford made some assertions regarding Student Congress’ finance process that deserve response.
First, he suggested that Student Congress should not allocate all its funds for the year during the fall semester. In fact, Student Congress already splits funding between the fall and spring appropriations processes. We are not out of money for the year, as Crawford’s letter suggested.
Second, he suggested Student Congress should completely overhaul its appropriations process to save money rather than focus on cutting stipends.
What Crawford overlooks is that the finance committee already cuts a significant amount from almost every request it receives. A rough estimate suggests that the finance committee cut more than $50,000 from this semester’s initial requests, which totaled more than $200,000.
Furthermore, a more serious issue that affects the funding process is that student groups continue to face sweeping budget cuts, which cause them to rely more and more on Student Congress for funding. Due to this increased demand, members are working on measures that will maximize the money that student groups receive, and one such measure is the bill to cut the student body vice president’s stipend.
We encourage Crawford to observe this process at a finance committee meeting or a Student Congress meeting where finance requests are actually discussed, rather than make sweeping assertions after observing only one meeting during which not a single financing request was debated.
Brittany Best ’15
Chairwoman
Finance committee
Joseph Strader ’14
School of Law
Vice-chairman
Oversight and advocacy
