This year’s Program’s Finance Committee had its toughest challenge yet in a tense and at times dramatic budget hearing for the Veterans and Family Student Association Friday night.
The veterans group, which was just recognized by the ASUO last year, was asking for its first budget. The committee’s budget model, along with the ASUO Executive’s model, allows for a first-time budget of $300 for any student group. The veterans asked for nearly $7,000.
With successful fundraising, political support from a wide swath of University departments and organizations, and high visibility on campus, VFSA is far more advanced than most two-and-a-half-year-old programs.
But the PFC is under pressure to prove it can stay within the boundaries set by the Student Senate of no more than a 5.5 percent increase in its total budget.
With the budgets of three more contracted services to vote on and five more weeks of hearings for student programs, Sen. Steven Wilsey maintained that the committee was in no position to approve such a large increase so early in the budgeting season.
At the start of the hearing there were six VFSA members in the room, one in a wheelchair. Sean Jin, activities director for the group and a regular critic of student government spending, along with co-director Shane Addis, made the case for the work the group has done and plans to do.
They listed events such as Veterans Awareness Week and a special commencement ceremony for graduating veterans.
“It’s important that we take care of our veterans, I feel like,” PFC member Brandon Culbertson said.
“For some reason there’s this political pressure that we have to follow precedent,” Sen. Diego Hernandez said. “I would be comfortable breaking that precedent and giving more to this group.”
Hernandez said other new groups haven’t raised as much money or shown as much potential, and still received the same $300.
“Giving them 300 (dollars) says they’re as good a group as you and I don’t agree with that,” Hernandez said.
Sen. Nick Meyers warned against becoming “a panel of robots” unable to assess a group’s value to campus.
In a tense exchange with Wilsey, Meyers said, “In my opinion, this is one of the best groups on campus.”
Wilsey shot back, “I’d be careful about what is the best group on campus.”
“In my opinion,” Meyers stressed before Wilsey interrupted.
“I’d be careful,” Wilsey said ” … We are the Programs Finance Committee. We do operate under viewpoint neutrality and I’ve actually studied viewpoint neutrality.
“I think to do it in the end as a qualitative analysis would be the best choice,” Wilsey said, advocating recalling the group once all hearings have been conducted. Wilsey, who does most of the math for the group, estimated they will have a cushion of about $40,000 from which to draw for special circumstances after all budgets have been decided.
Sen. Kate Jones, who was observing the hearing but is not a PFC member, told the panel that they hadn’t taken other groups’ special circumstances into consideration in any of the other hearings Friday night. She asked what the criteria would be.
“Going off of what Kate said, if we (give a larger budget) now, how are we to evaluate this group?” Wilsey asked. “We don’t know what will come tomorrow, we don’t know what the special circumstances will be.”
Addis told the panel that going back to college was one of the hardest things for a veteran to do. He mentioned post-traumatic stress disorder.
“It’s a need you see before you,” Addis said. “I just challenge you to see this group has grown so fast, and the men and women here are so responsible and give so much of their time.”
Two of the 14 VFSA members in the room were by this time seated at the table with the committee members. Nearly 20 veterans squeezed into the room by the end of the hearing.
Wilsey continued to warn of the danger of allocating too much too soon. If the veterans were given nearly $7,000 now, he said, other groups might not even get enough money to maintain their current level of service.
“I’m going to be the bad guy here,” he said, beet-faced and rubbing his temples. He read the motion with every line item and dollar amount, “zero dollars,” in a near whisper.
Jones suggested that making no decision and rescheduling the group would be the best option.
Committee members and Jin agreed. Wilsey rescinded his motion, and the group rescheduled for Jan. 24 at 9 p.m.
After the hearing ended and veterans, Jones and ASUO accountant Lynn Giordano were gone, committee members stayed in their seats and continued to argue about the virtues of viewpoint neutrality, their own budgeting model and how best to move forward with the situation.
Culbertson said they needed a way to count a new group’s fundraising in their model. Wilsey went over all of the numbers. He said funds for growth would soon drop to $15,000, and giving more than $6,000 to one group so early would have “eaten” their budget for growth “almost immediately.”
“We already have a 5.5 benchmark, we don’t need to go over. We could even come under,” Wilsey said. “We should do it in the fairest way possible.”
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