Large organizations benifit from GAF increase while small organizations struggle for funding
Funding for student orgnaizations at USD is unveven and little justification for the denial of funds is being given to the organizations.
Last semester, students voted to increase the General Activity Fee by $4.50. This fee will continue to rise for the next three years until the overall increase is capped at $13.50. Although this seems like a nominal price, it is expected that this year alone the hike in fees will generate more than $700,000.
Roughly $502,000 of that is allocated toward the athletic department. The fee itself was given the backing of a large majority of the student body, and they don’t seem to mind chipping in a little extra money to make their school a better place.
A large part of the funding goes toward helping student organizations function properly, but it seems while some are receiving most or all of their requested funding, others are not.
The Volante is one student organization that receives GAF funding.
Different reasons are cited for the uneven projection of funds to various student organizations, which sometimes has to do with the number of students each organization has an effect on or the amount of money that is needed to put on certain events.
There are many cases when the SGA seems to offer justification for only partially funding a group, but those explanations are often vague and not universal throughout the organizations themselves.
The Honor’s Association, for example, recently requested a budget of $2,260. They were granted $150. The main reason for this particular denial of funding was cited as “unspent funds.”
The International Club requested $13,280 and received $3,200 with one of the main justifications being “budget constraints.”
Meanwhile, the Campus Activities Board requested $120,000 and received more than $115,000.
Other justifications include “not funding to encourage fundraising,” as was the case with the Basic Biomedical Sciences Graduate Student Organization which requested a modest $275 in total funding.
The SERVE student organization requested $10,495 and was granted full funding.
The SGA, when deciding how funds are allocated to student organizations, should follow a more even-handed approach.
Furthermore, the Senate should offer up more in-depth justifications for denying requested funding to student organizations.
Given the student body’s willingness to get on board with a higher General Activity Fee to benefit the school, the SGA should offer up concrete reasoning in its justification for funding denials.
The SGA owes the student body proper reasoning about why certain organizations are getting a higher percentage of GAF funding while others are being denied.
