SGA holds executive forum, discusses funding for organizations

The funding of student organizations was at the top of a list of topics discussed by Student Government Association executive staff members during an hour-long forum Monday evening.

SGA President Sami Zoss said the goal of the forum was for SGA to get feedback from student organizations and give them the opportunity to ask questions.

The forum began with the explanation of what makes an organization eligible to be funded under SGA guidelines. Organizations can be funded for a variety of things, but any organization that target a specific audience, such as religion, major and gender cannot be funded by SGA.

The General Activities Fund (GAF) increase and the tuition freeze was also explained by SGA members after a question from the audience was brought forward.

The main point of discussion that the SGA members brought forward was the possibility of changing the funding of food for organizations.

Zoss said she has been approached by many different organizations on the issue.

“Quite a few organizations have come to us asking for funding of food and have made good cases about it,” Zoss said. “It’s made us as an executive team look at why we should possibly change this.”

SGA Vice President Michael Buchanan asked if food was as important as organization funding. The answer was a resounding yes from the audience.

However, Zoss said that may cause organizations to move money around.

“The main thing right now is that if you want more food, you might have to give up more of your organization budget,” Zoss said.

However, SGA Business Manager Emily VanLaecken said it would be relatively easy to move money around for organizations to get more food.

VanLaecken expressed that her biggest concern about giving students money for food is that it will be abused.

“One concern that SGA has about food is that some organizations may not (use) it appropriately and abuse it,” VanLaecken said.

SGA members said that with the feedback they plan to discuss the topic more before taking any further action on the issue.

After the discussion about food funding, representatives from Dakotathon asked about the funding of clothing, such as t-shirts, for organizations.

Buchanan said organizations should evaluate the price per student in a group and bring it forward to the Finance Committee at the beginning of the year so that it could be written into their budget.

Later, a question was asked by an audience member about what differentiated a small organization from a large organization. Buchanan said the current label is flawed and that SGA follows it loosely.

“Currently, it is based off of how much money is requested by an organization,” Buchanan said. “That’s why we are trying to change it because you could have five students in your organization and request $20,000. So we are kind of loosely following it and are looking at what events they host, student impact, etc.”

SGA plans to host similar forums in the future.