More than 90 students from organizations around campus packed into Maxwell Auditorium Wednesday to witness the Student Association’s approval of budgets for next semester.

After being delayed more than a week, SA was able to approve or deny approximately one-third of the finance board’s recommendations, but not without controversy.

Before the budgeting process began, the SA assembly approved a report submitted by students Allen Frimpong, Tamekia Hosang, Jamar Hooks and Ajua Kouadio. The reported stated that the finance board did not conduct its deliberations properly, citing examples of alleged actions performed by Comptroller Maggie Misztal and other members of her finance board that compromised the hearings’ integrity.

‘There is a lack of analysis on the part of both the comptroller and the finance board,’ the report stated.

Because it receives the bulk of the funding, University Union underwent several attacks by members of smaller organizations. UU President Dennis Jacobs said it is because his organization deals with large-scale programming,

‘UU has had to deal with that kind of small group uproar,’ Jacobs said.

The finance board, which concluded its deliberations at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, recommended that UU Cinemas receive $14,000 out of the $34,000 it requested. The SA did not approve this recommendation and sent the bill back to the finance board for review.

Misztal said part of the reason UU Cinemas received such a substantial cut was because of the $9,000 the group wasted.

‘This was a way of showing student organizations are accountable,’ Misztal said.

UU concerts also suffered losses from the finance board. The board recommended not to fund any of three concerts proposed for $63,365 each. After much debate among SA members, UU members and members of small student organizations, the SA assembly also voted to send these proposals back to the finance board to be reconsidered.

Much of the discontent concerning the UU Concerts’ budget proposals were due to the fact that they did not mention specific events. Several students said it was unfair that smaller student groups had to outline specific events, while UU would describe the type of event, but not the details.

Adam Gorode, the UU Concerts chair, said the reason UU Concerts cannot mention specific artists is due to contract limitations and the fact that they cannot book an artist until they know how much money they have to work with.

UU’s request for concert money for its annual Block Party was also sent back to the finance board by the SA. UU asked for $173,242 for the event, and the finance board recommended it receive $150,000 instead. During the debate over the bill, many students showed their discontent over the fact that such a large portion of the budget was going to UU.

‘Shouldn’t SA consider sending back the bill so smaller student organizations can get some of that money?’ Jason Jackson, president of Alpha Phi Alpha, asked the SA assembly.

Another theme of Wednesday night’s budget meeting was the finance board’s recommendation for several groups to collaborate with each other to sponsor events. The board would not fund events for Asian Students in America, the Korean Student Association and Masti: the South Asian Dance and Cultural Organization on the grounds that since the groups all represented Asian students, they should collaborate with each other.

This issue spurred much debate among those present at the meeting. Travis Mason, the SA vice president and president-elect, said it was unfair to assume that because the groups represented parts of the Asian campus community, they should work together.

‘I haven’t seen the Israelites and the Palestinians collaborating,’ he said.

Billy Kim, the president of the Korean Student Association, said it was insulting to be asked to collaborate with other Asian student groups.

‘They’re asking three different Asian organizations to collaborate, but they aren’t asking other organizations to do this,’ he said.

Diana Ong, president of ASIA, said the finance board’s actions failed to promote diversity among students and were detrimental to smaller student organizations.

‘If you don’t push ‘small organizations,’ they can’t grow,’ Ong said.

Joan Gabel, the SA parliamentarian, began Wednesday’s meeting by implementing new procedures for debate on bills. The procedures called for speakers on the SA assembly and other observing students to take only one minute when presenting their points during pro and con debates over budgeting bills.

‘I saw that important voices at meetings were not being heard,’ Gabel said. ‘We lost a diversity of dialogue that’s important for a democratic system.’

Gabel added that she thought the new procedures seemed to be successful and made the budget approval process run smoother than before.

Because there were approximately 150 proposed budgets to consider, however, the SA assembly suspended the meeting until tomorrow night. Gabel said the budgeting process could go through this Saturday.

‘We will finish the budgets by the end of the week,’ Gabel said.

Published on December 8, 2004 at 12:00 pm