Tensions are high in the ASUO this week. After a year that started off fairly well, the recent debate over the Veterans and Family Student Association’s $6,960 budget has heated up and does not appear to be ending soon.
After a contentious week, the PFC recalled the VFSA budget for the second time. The meeting, which will be held Friday night, will likely result in a smaller increase than the $6,960 total budget that was allocated on Monday.
The problem began when the PFC allocated $6,660 to the VFSA at Monday night’s recall hearing to add to their starting budget of $300. That budget is more than 23 times larger than what new groups normally receive, and the PFC was wrong to give any group, let alone a new one, such a disproportionately large increase.
While the $300 normally given to new groups isn’t an amount written into the ASUO Constitution, the tradition exists for a reason. New groups have no spending history, and the PFC has no way of knowing whether they will spend responsibly. The VFSA is in a slightly different position, having already done a good deal of fundraising and showing the potential for growth, which is rare for a new group. These special circumstances would justify a budget of more than $300, but not nearly $7,000. Former Sen. and PFC member Steven Wilsey’s suggestion of $3,000 is a good compromise. As Wilsey said, most groups receive between $3,000 and $5,000 from the PFC, so the compromise would reward the group’s planning and fundraising without going overboard.
We can understand the argument for giving this year’s new groups the chance at a slightly bigger increase to allow for more programming, but Monday night’s increase was completely unfair to every other group. The PFC has the chance to rectify this on Friday and should take advantage of the situation.
The PFC this year was in a unique position of being able to give programs extra money to allow for growth while reducing the incidental fee. The Career Center is in the process of being absorbed by the University, allowing the PFC to decrease its funding from student fees by $91,251.
However, it seems that someone forgot to tell the PFC that just because it can increase its total allocations by 5.5 percent, the benchmark set by the Student Senate, it does not mean it should. The unusually high benchmark should not have been used as an excuse to give such blatant preference to one group. Reducing a budget by $91,251 should be an opportunity to lower fees, not an invitation to allocate extra money to PFC members’ favorite groups.
The PFC recalled the VFSA budget because the original hearing in January turned into an emotional debate after which 20 veterans packed into the EMU Boardroom to argue that without the $6,900 budget, they could not provide the services that veterans need. After a second hearing, the committee did not feel it could allocate a large budget to the group at the time, saving it instead for the recall process. At the original hearing, PFC member Nick Meyers argued that he wanted to give more money to the group because it is “one of the best groups on campus.”
This argument is not now and never should have been about how good the VFSA is compared to other groups, and the PFC is wrong for allowing its views on what group is “the best” to affect its decisions.
If the PFC does not reduce the amount of the VFSA’s budget, every member and every director of every other student group should be outraged that the committee allowed political and emotional pressures to sway them to act in such a flagrant violation of its own standards.