ASUO Student Senate Ombudsman Mike Sherman and University Gaming Club Director Mike Peterson have reached an agreement to replace the club’s zero-funded budget for next year with Senate surplus money, Sherman said.
The agreement was reached after Peterson filed a grievance against the ASUO Programs Finance Committee in early May, alleging that the group’s budget was nixed because the group’s ASUO Tag, Sen. Colin Andries, never helped group
members establish their budget for 2004-05. Each PFC member is assigned to assist specific student groups with budget-making.
Sherman said he would help Peterson create a budget himself to submit to the Senate during the summer or fall. Because the PFC is out of session, using money from the Senate surplus is the only way to get the group any money, he said. Also, Senate rules prohibit groups from making requests this fiscal year for money to be used next fiscal year, he said.
“I’m just waiting for (Peterson) to get back in touch with me,” Sherman said. “Until he does, I can’t help him put together a budget.”
Peterson said he doesn’t recall Sherman saying he’d help the group put together a budget, but said he welcomes the help. Peterson said the group will have to go through the hassle of filing additional paperwork because Andries didn’t do his job by contacting the group.
“It’s going to be a mess,” Peterson said. “And it’s not a mess I caused.”
According to the ASUO Programs Budget Packet for the 2004-05 fiscal year, a group’s PFC Tag should meet with the group a minimum of three times in October, November and December 2003. Groups that aren’t contacted by their Tags should call the PFC office, the packet states.
In the grievance, Peterson wrote that that Andries never contacted the University Gaming Club to help it put together a budget, “despite repeated assurances otherwise at Program Council meetings.”
In an interview, Peterson said he contacted Andries two or three times, and Andries kept assuring him he would call him, but never did.
“Obviously that made it hard to do a budget,” Peterson said. “If he had a herd of elephants sitting on him, maybe I could understand why I didn’t get called.”
Andries dismissed the allegations, however, calling them “unfounded.” He said he sent e-mails to the group, attended all Program Council meetings and did what he could to contact the group. He said the failure to communicate was Peterson’s fault.
“I made my best efforts to contact people,” Andries said. “I feel I did make efforts to contact them and help them out. You always have to remember this is a two-way road. Part of their duty as group representatives is to make sure they’re on top of things.”
Peterson said once the group failed to put together a budget, it was scheduled to attend a budget hearing in which he could have protested the loss of the group’s budget. He said he was never told about the hearing, however, and later heard from a friend that the group had been defunded, citing a story in the Emerald.
Sherman said the University Gaming Club could have approached either ASUO Controllers or PFC members to get help putting together a budget, but those possibilities were not communicated to the group.
Sherman said this is the second grievance filed against the PFC this year.