As spring term draws to a close, ASUO-funded groups are lining up to transfer funds within their accounts to pay off debts or spend their budgets before the end of the fiscal year. Without these transfers, student programs risk facing budget cuts for not spending the money they were allotted by the Programs Finance Committee.

“The fundamental issue is that for so many years the PFC model has rewarded groups for spending their entire budget,” ASUO Chief of Staff Athan Papailiou said, “which has institutionalized the notion that if a group cannot spend their entire budget,” special requests can be made to enable them to do so at the end of the year.
Papailiou said he could not say whether the groups that recently transferred funds did so in an attempt to spend their entire budgets. While next year’s student group leaders would not feel the brunt of this year’s unspent allocations, except maybe explaining spending to the PFC, it is the leaders in 2009-10 who would see smaller budgets.
Papailiou said approval of funds transfers should hinge on whether the new use for the funds falls within the group’s ASUO approved mission and goals.
“It’s for the groups to determine how to most effectively spend their own money, but if they feel they cannot spend (within their mission and goals), they should not be punished by next year’s Programs Finance Committee,” Papailiou said.
That determination can range from spending toward longer-term goals, such as Sustainable Advantage’s recent transfer of more than $5,600 toward the creation of a library centered on sustainability, to the ASUO Election Board’s decision last year to spend left-over funds on pencils.
Many recent transfers appear to share the mission and goals of the groups in question. Sustainable Advantage received $37,000 of over-realized student fees last month, just a few thousand dollars shy of the amount requested, to acquire materials for a new collection of books and DVDs centered on sustainable business and renewable energy development. Money left over from a conference the group hosted in April was transferred at last week’s Senate meeting and will be put toward the library’s completion.
The transfer was the largest of those approved by Senate, but more than a dozen other groups made similar adjustments.
Matt Schroettnig, who represented Sustainable Advantage before Senate, told the Emerald the group “expected to pay a number of the speakers and we didn’t have to. Instead of receiving honorariums they came for free.”
If the group had not received over-realized funds to start the library collection, Schroettnig said the group may not have found a way to spend the $5,600 and may have faced decreases during the next budget season.
Because the system requires group leaders to finalize budgets early, in Sustainable Advantage’s case Jan. 18, Schroettnig still anticipated spending more on the conference. He requested and received a budget for 2008-09 similar to that of 2007-08, which turned out to be too much.
“Given our experience, next year we’ll be able to plan accordingly (and) essentially just double what we’re doing,” he said.
Instead of being held in Lillis Hall as it was this year, next spring’s conference will take place in Portland and students will be bussed there from Eugene. Schroettnig said big name speakers will be more likely to attend a conference in Portland.
Former ASUO Finance Coordinator Matt Rose said ASUO Controllers have to approve all spending and ensure that it fits within a group’s goals. “It is done with the consent of the Senate and it is agreed upon that it is meeting the mission of the incidental fee,” he said.
“As long as they are still meeting those tenets, I think the money is being spent in good faith,” he said.
The Executive branch of the ASUO itself has unexpected budgeting issues from time to time. In 2007, the elections board did not spend all of its budget during election season. Kendell Tylee, at the start of her term as 2007-08 elections coordinator, spent the remaining funds on pencils advertising elections.
Tylee said the pencils did not include specific dates of elections so they could be distributed for several years.
This year, the elections board had about $4,200 surplus after elections ended, Rose said. Tylee, foreseeing that the board would not spend its budget, asked Senate to create a line item for food for the Executive debates. When the second Executive debate was canceled because the election was won outright during the primary, and voter’s pamphlets cost $1,000 less than budgeted, the Executive returned to Senate to transfer funds again.
Of the funds remaining after elections, more than $1,400 was transferred from the board to the United States Student Association, in part to pay off an ASUO Executive debt that was at least two years old.
Rose said the ASUO had a $1,000 bill from a conference students attended in 2006 that no one in the ASUO was aware of until Former Vice President Chii-San SunOwen received an invoice for it at a conference earlier this year. No mention was made in the Executive’s request about paying the debt.
“I think it’s pretty lame,” Oregon Commentator publisher Guy Simmons said, “that if you don’t spend all of your money you’re likely to lose it. It promotes fiscal irresponsibility.” The Commentator’s budget was cut two years in a row due to insufficient spending.
“It fully encourages student groups to waste student money,” Simmons said. “The PFC has shown itself to be pretty clear on the matter: You spend your money or you get a decrease.”
Simmons said the Commentator is on track to spend all its money this year.
Papailiou said the next PFC, which determines the budgets of the ASUO’s 120-plus student groups, “should place greater emphasis on the amount fundraised than the amount spent when determining if a group should receive an increase in funding.”
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