As I picked up the Iowa State Daily today and started to browse the stories between classes, I noticed a preliminary listing of Student Org budgets in the back of the paper. Interesting to me, as I have been a treasurer for quite a few years of my time at ISU and I of course have interest in the Space Society budget I helped formulate. So, I was a bit surprised to see that the budget that I'd confirmed the other day had a trip and our safety items cut to come to a balance of $1341.64, mostly for a new rocket system some members wanted to work on, had been cut down to $435.64. I was a bit confused because while $1300 is a lot of money, it's a lot less than the $2200 we asked for and the hardware for rocketry is expensive (these budgets don't include rocket fuel and transportation to launch sites folks).
Anyways, needless to say I was somewhat annoyed. There must be some amazing new expenses for GSB that have brought our allocations from $1,738.47 to $1,881.50 to $1,795.53 to $435.64. It's not like the club is doing any less than it always has to teach students about rocketry and astronomy. So I started looking. Now, keep in mind that I have been a critic of some of the things GSB funds for a long time before now (as soon as I learned GSB funded them), but haven't made much of a move to remedy the situation. So, maybe now the time has come that the junk stuffed into the GSB budget has to go. So I started to do what I love to do: look at the numbers.
After classifying each of the 2011 budgets as budgets for student organizations, student services, magazines, events, or other kinds of groups I have a few findings to present. Did you know that while when added together, Student Organizations' total expenses make up 18% of all requesting groups' expenses, but they only receive 4% of the total funds in the end? Where does that money go? It gets tacked on to pay for the student services GSB pays for like the Lawyer we have for advice, the counseling clinic we have for students, and Couple/Family Therapy (didn't know we had that one). It also goes to pay for events like the annual Rodeo, SUB entertainers, Winterfest, and subsidized tickets for Stephens Auditorium for students (to the tune of $80k). I also didn't realize that GSB has for years been providing a lot ($25k) of funding to the campus YMCA and YWCA, groups that I don't even know what they do.
I have to run to class soon, so I'm going to make this thought simple. At a recent conference for the Space Society I latched on to a phrase someone said. He said, "[our organizations] teach students what they don't learn in class". My feeling is that the funds provided to GSB should be used for groups and services that provide a fun and different learning experience outside of class. I am very in favor of groups like the Committee on Lectures etc, but costs like the $250,000 spent on a full time lawyer who can only give advice to students who ask is a unnecessary expense I feel. I think GSB should solidify what they do fund for students with students' money rather than providing the most money to services they feel are useful to the most students, though that may not enhance our learning. So anyhow, here's the short list of services/groups that I disapprove of (this is my opinion alone and probably would be my opinion even if I was not affiliated with groups like the Space Society):
- Student Legal Council
- ISU Theater
- YMCA
- YWCA
- Couple and Family Therapy
- FOCUS
- Performing Arts Council (maybe)
- Student Activities Center (SAC) (should come from elsewhere)
- Student Union Board (SUB) (Entertainment is good, but shouldn't be GSB's purpose)
- Winterfest (Social Event)
- Cyclone Rodeo (I was fine when this didn't go through allocations like a club)
- 4 Different Magazines + the Daily (feel that costs there could be cut somehow)
6 comments:
so you're against couple and family therapy clinic, student legal, and other student funded offices because you "don't know what they do." persuasive argument for setting gsb's priorities...
Well Tom, I've never used any of them. I have nothing against what they do (and I do have some idea of what each does), but I just feel that certain things are not necessarily GSB's job to fund. Please feel free to rationalize why GSB's pet lawyer deserves 5x the combined budgets of all student organizations that GSB wants to fund in 2011.
i'm not tom. "i've never used any of them" is a continuation of your argument that groups should be funded based on how useful they are to you.
GSB doesn't use student legal, let alone exclusively use student legal. i think "GSB's pet lawyer" is an unfair characterization.
http://www.dso.iastate.edu/sls/
Student Legal is an important service offered to students. Many universities offer this same service - it is not an excess offered by ISU alone.
GSB is contractually obligated to fund the attorneys' salaries. The reduction in ISSS's budget is not due to funding of student funded offices, but instead is due to the low increases in the student activity fee the last few years.
Is your contention that GSB should have greater discretion in funding student funded offices? I would strongly disagree on this - Finance Committee does the best it can with the powers it has. For example, salaries cannot be cut in Regulars. Is it your argument that GSB should fund clubs first and student services second, or that the proportion of GSB's budget towards student services in relation to clubs is too large? I would disagree here too, but this is a debate that I would encourage. I just ask - please don't do it as sour grapes about your budget. Please do it professionally, with more research than just "I've never used any of them."
I'm not saying any of them are not useful because I have not used them. I'm just saying that I do not currently have statistics on how often these services are used. Mr. Danielson gave me the response that sounded like it makes more sense to fund those services because they can potentially help more students. My point is that cuts should be made equally between services and organizations.
While many other universities do offer student legal services, other universities do charge a fee to help pay for such services (i.e. http://www1.umn.edu/usls/pdfs/FeesSchedule_onLetterhead.pdf). It is a useful service for students, but I'm not sure it should be held in parallel with student groups (very different services).
I understand that changing actual salaries is difficult to do, but the fact that that salary takes up 23% of the budget is a big deal. It is one of those things that I'm not sure GSB should pony up ALL of the money for if possible.
If it was up to me, I would fund clubs first and services second. I would especially hesitate to add additional services without increasing funding somehow to compensate (I'm talking about SUB and SAC here). When GSB is spending 15% of students' $1.1 million on student organizations (11% of that is the cost of GSB) and 42% on services, I feel that the proportion is off. That's my main point and I'm happy to debate it. I would also note that GSB's Bylaws agree with me within interpretation that the "entertainment" functions that the current budget spends a decent amount of money on are generally non-criteria (see 13.4.2.2).
rick, hopefully some of this widsom will help our conversation on the budget..
"This is why I urge anyone willing to read this post to not fear and reject that which they don't understand." student legal, other student services. budget process in general.
"Whenever you don't understand something or someone, seek to learn more about them and who they are and what they feel rather than rejecting them or it out of hand." 'I've never used them', 'I do not currently have statistics on how often these services are used.'
"Moderating reactions to another person's action can go a long way. I encourage you to not accept fearful reasoning and to react carefully in whatever you do today and henceforth." your final comment, about a reasonable discussion on gsb budget priorities, instead of your initial fearful and inflammatory comments
Thanks for your comments. If there is any way you can help me understand more about these services that GSB provides, that would be great! My only issue is the last time I was working to learn more about a GSB project, I had issues because I am not part of GSB and not a journalist either (so generally get asked, "why do you possibly need to know?"). So, if there is a way for GSB to provide more information or a report about these services, I would be very interested.
I'm sorry my reaction was strong, but after negotiating with GSB for years over the organization's budget, it gets tiring and I guess I did just snap to some extent upon hearing of a additional 38% cut in ISSS's budget request (which the treasurer didn't know about until I informed him Wed night). I've haggled over trips, telescope magnifying lenses, and epoxy (before the senate) with GSB and it takes its toll, especially when I understand some of the more interesting things that GSB does fund to the tune of 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars.
I'm not rejecting these services out of hand or saying they should all have their funding cut, but just asking the question "why". It's the nagging annoyance that if I turned the ISSS into a magazine publishing organization I could get funding to publish tons of papers that people may read around campus, but as a group of space enthusiasts, we get put on the back burner (similar to NASA I might add).
I realize that as Mr. Danielson says, we could get funding for the capital items that were cut through a separate request for money from the capital items account, but that means getting a bill written, getting hassled for weeks by senate, and facing possible veto by the president. It's a lot of work for a simple request and moved me to bring up older annoyances with some GSB-funded activities. I'm sorry if I cause any problems, but I feel some services, events, and priorities need occasional re-examining. In addition, thanks for your comments, they're very insightful.
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