Student organizations may have to wait until next semester before they know how much funding they will receive from the Student Association.

Until deliberations are conducted on the case against SA Comptroller Maggie Misztal by the Judicial Review Board, budgets cannot be passed by the SA assembly, leaving many student groups with no means to schedule events for the first weeks of the spring semester.

‘This puts us in quite the bad spot,’ said Dennis Jacobs, president of University Union. ‘We can’t do much without knowing how much we can spend.’

Jason Jackson, president of Alpha Phi Alpha, submitted a complaint Nov. 17 accusing Misztal of unfair practices in distributing funds to the National Panhellenic committee. He claimed Misztal made negative comments concerning the NPC’s budget proposals to members outside of the organization, and did not give an equal opportunity for the group to receive funds.

‘The complaint was basically to make sure there was no conflict of interest with the comptroller,’ Jackson said. ‘I feel bad the process is being pushed back, but it has to be fair.’

Jackson also said his intention in filing the complaint was not to make the matter a personal affair, but to give all student organizations an equal opportunity at receiving funding from SA.

‘I’m not trying to hold up budgets,’ Jackson said. ‘It’s the smaller organizations that I’m worried about.’

The JRB will hold its hearing Wednesday at 7 p.m.

The budgets were originally scheduled to be passed at Monday night’s SA meeting, but due to the complaints against Misztal, they were tabled until the JRB holds its hearing and comes to a decision.

Andrew Lederman, president of SA, told the assembly Monday night to be ready at a moment’s notice to hold a budget meeting.

If the JRB’s deliberations are not complete by the last day of classes, the budgets will not be passed until mid-January at the earliest, according to Misztal.

‘The JRB is not acting in the best interest of the students,’ Misztal said. ‘They do not understand the magnitude of the situation.’

Greg Hoofnagle, the chairman of the JRB, said he does not know how long the deliberations are expected to take after the hearing Wednesday, but he will take into account the budget deadline.

‘I feel horrible, but my job is to look at the charges,’ Hoofnagle said.

Misztal said student organizations cannot start planning events for next semester until they know what their budget is, and she has already heard concerns from University Union on the issue.

The University Union was supposed to have its budget by Nov. 22, but now the group must wait along with the other student organizations until the JRB comes to its decision. Jacobs said because of the delay, University Union has missed its routing week and it will be nearly impossible to book acts for the month of January.

Jacobs said that in a worst-case scenario, University Union will not receive its funding until the end of January, and will therefore not have any scheduled events until March. As a backup plan, the group will try to book a large act to compensate for the lack of programming.

‘This hurts us and the SU community,’ he said.

Published on November 29, 2004 at 12:00 pm