Proliferation of organizations has SFC pinching pennies

Aid to Strays suffers major budget cuts

Fitting a square peg into a round hole is a pretty difficult task, but it doesn't compare to the Student Finance Committee's (SFC) job of allocating $330,000 to student organizations that requested a total budget of $742,371.

During the past two weeks the SFC labored for a total of 19 and a half hours, over two separate meetings, to hammer out next year's budget allocations for all student organizations.

SFC members had to trim the proposed budgets by approximately 50 percent in order to produce the desired budget allocations.

"I think it went very well. We were very thorough," sophomore SFC member Danielle Hirsch said.

Twenty-eight new student organizations have popped up on campus since last year, setting a record high number of active organizations.

Of the 135 active students organizations, 103 submitted budget requests to SFC. Even though the number of organizations increased, the amount of money dispersed to them remained the same. The bottom line for the student body: less money for all student- run groups.

The student activities fee allots $150 for each student, which transmits into $330,000 for the whole student body. The amount of the fee remained stagnant this year, leaving the SFC to solve the problem of which organization receives how much money.

SFC members said that compared to years past, the process ran rather well. "This year was much more smooth," said veteran SFC member senior Matt Bourque, who has served as on the board the past two and a half years. "I thought we did it fair and equitable."

The committee began its daunting task by developing a set of guidelines to apply to each individual budget.

Part of the guidelines included providing funds for three guest speakers, two videos, two books and two magazine subscriptions that the groups requested. With these guidelines established, the committee members reviewed each budget, applied their guidelines and allotted funds accordingly.

"We don't make value judgments, like 'theater is better than sports,'" SFC Treasurer senior Becca Barnes said.

After one round of this process, the total funds dispersed registered $330,487.67. This number was close enough for the SFC to the desired $330, 000, and they closed their meetings. For SFC members this was a nice change. In years past, they often had to make several rounds of evaluations.

Included in the SFC budget is $50,000 for ad hoc funding and $20,000 for appeals.

Since so much money had to be cut from organizations' budgets, the SFC expects a backlash from several organizations.

"Most people probably aren't going to be happy, but there's nothing we can do," said Barnes.

SFC members stressed the fact that Barnes is not the only one responsible for the student organization's budget allocations.

"People should know that the decisions aren't just made by Becca," Bourque said.

A number of groups received deep cuts. Most notably, Oberlin Aid for Strays (OAS) dropped to $383, a steep decline from last year's $2,556.14.

OAS takes care of stray animals inhabiting the town of Oberlin. Even though the town supplies a building and land to take care of the wayward animals, the animals' food and veterinarian care is provided by OAS.

"The city does not provide a normal municipal service for it. We want the city to think about it, so they realize they are the ones who should be funding it," said Barnes. Since a disproportionate amount of stray animals are the result of Oberlin students, the city believes that the College should be responsible for the animals. By taking away the funding for food and veterinary care of the stray animals, SFC has put the onus on the city to pay for the strays.

The student senate attempted to remedy this situation earlier in the year. A task force, titled the Initiatives Advisory Council, was assembled to combat these problems. Despite the council's efforts, no resolution materialized and SFC was left to deal with the issue. "It was a really tough cut to decide, but we hope it puts pressure on the town to pick up these costs," said Hirsch.

Another serious concern for SFC was the funding of weekly Shabbat dinners through Hillel's budget. SFC provided money for Shabbat dinners for half of next year, and expects Hillel to foot the rest of the dinners through other avenues, such as alumni support.

Barnes said, "The SFC still feels it's not their place to be funding them."

Overall, SFC members said they were satisfied with their work.

"I feel this year the SFC did a really good job of going through the budgets line by line based upon merits," said Barnes.

Despite their hard work, the SFC anticipates receiving harsh criticism from student organizations.

"It will be an interesting week, to say the least," Hirsch said.