Politics prevent org benifits from being evaluated
The Student Services Finance Committee and Adventure Learning Programs are nearly complete opposites.
Whether you translate SSFC into ""Stop Spending Fat Cash"" or ""Start Serving and Foster Change,"" the seldomly crossed aisles of politics separate, rather than associate, the students of Madison in one of the most important forums of our self-governance.In the battle of politics, students get hurt.
The Adventure Learning Program, on the other hand, fosters an environment in which all members of a group feel welcome and involved. Through interactive campus workshops and high ropes course outings, we encourage active dialogue on trust, teamwork and problem-solving in pursuit of a greater understanding of their interaction with others.Through the experience of learning while doing, students grow.
Twenty-six service organizations and several non allocable programs turn to ASM for almost $20 million each year to provide services fundamental to the success of our campus. SSFC is charged with disbursing those segregated fees, entrusted with a heavy burden of responsibility by the entire student body. Unfortunately, the committee's work is child's play to some on the committee. The complete disrespect for the important decisions they make is nauseating.
I challenge you to request a copy of the taped Oct. 7th SSFC debate on check-in procedures or the Oct. 9th conversation about home-made computers. If you are satisfied with your representatives after those performances, then you and I have different expectations of the students who make responsible decisions on our behalf.
Last week's rash elimination of the ALPs full-time specialist is a case in point. The committee acted negligently in axing the important position, crunching services in an attempt to crunch numbers. The salary, recruitment costs and staff time invested in finding the perfect candidate will be significantly compromised, felled by the sword of a mindless decision.
We demonstrated an increasing demand for our services; the proof lies in numbers of people we served over the past seven years. In the third year of our programming, ALPs coordinated 32 workshops. Four years later, during the 2001-'02 school year, ALPs ran 99 workshops serving 2,234 participants. We tripled the number of people we worked with while maintaining a budget that grew more slowly than the quality and quantity of our services. And even more importantly, we're still growing. Dozens of organizations sought us out at unprecedented rates this fall.
And we demonstrated that the growth of ALPs and its services would be limited if the committee didn't choose to reconsider the cut. ALPs has tried to push projects and programs with paid, non paid and for-credit student involvement in the past. Although certainly not lacking drive and energy, our facilitators simply cannot offer the time commitment, the professional experience and continuity of a long-term Masters-level specialist. Invaluable progress, like a campus ropes course and national collaboration, would only be possible with the Experiential Education specialist.
The past investments SSFC has made in ALPs have been fruitful, with an amazing direct effect on students and their organizations. Add to that the noble goals and efforts of the groups we work with, suddenly more efficient and successful because of progress made during the workshop. The multiplier effect we offer to the campus is truly powerful.
SSFC exists to provide the resources that enable campus organizations to serve the student body. ALPs furthers that mission by picking up where money drops off, offering to help the organization become more productive in a healthy environment. Last year, ALPs worked directly with almost exactly half of the organization's SSFC funds.
In the final view, it turns out SSFC and ALPs aren't that far apart, perhaps. The end goal of both organizations is to serve students.We've upheld our end. Now it's their turn.
SSFC fairly determines funding levels
For those who read the student newspapers regularly, it must seem that Student Services Finance Committee is always making controversial decisions. However, it's difficult for someone who has not attended an SSFC meeting to understand the process by which groups receive money. In other words, how we make budget decisions.
First I'd like to describe how the process works from the perspective of an SSFC committee member. Each group's budget is decided over a span of two meetings. During the first meeting, the group presents their budget and answers questions from the committee. This is our main opportunity to question budget increases, and therefore we need to be ready to ask questions. The next meeting is where the decisions take place. I like to come into the meeting with my proposed amendments ready to go. Just about everyone there realizes that they are going to have to make some compromises. For the most part, decisions are not as cut and dry as they may appear.
Determining the ideal funding level for a budget is not easy. We need to assign a monetary value to the services that are provided by every organization while strictly maintaining viewpoint neutrality. Every group will tell you that their group is vitally important and every request for funding is totally justified. As a result, it would be irresponsible to simply rubber-stamp budgets. Similarly, we cannot simply trust the judgements of last year's committee. Increases that may have looked acceptable to them may not appear reasonable to this year's SSFC. Groups requesting funding need to realize that budget increases may need to be justified to SSFC several years after the fact.
I came into SSFC knowing very little about most of the student organizations and the services they provided. Since working with these organizations, I've realized that they provide this campus with a great deal. These groups are filled with hard-working, energetic individuals that really want their organizations to succeed. The worst part of my job is telling them ""no."" After all, they wouldn't be requesting money if they didn't think it would help their organization. Unfortunately, this is often SSFC's role. SSFC is supposed to serve as a neutral watchdog and sometimes we have to make decisions that will make others unhappy. The question that we have to try to answer is not, ""Will this money provide students with a service?"" but instead, ""Is this a cost effective way to spend student's' money?""
Recent criticisms of SSFC have been that we are making reckless decisions merely to save student's a few dollars. However, if we were simply looking to save students money, the budgets we approved would look a lot different. Not including Wednesday's decisions, seven budgets for 2003-'04 have been approved by SSFC. Three groups got exactly what they wanted. Two groups whose budgets were altered still were granted budget increases greater than 10 percent from fiscal year 2002-'03. The two groups that received less this year than last still have budgets that are 53 percent and 64 percent higher than they were in 2001-'02. All in all, the average budget increase from the 2001-02 school year is 52 percent (26 percent per year).
These don't look like the kind of budget increases that would please fiscal conservatives. Student organizations may not be getting exactly what they want, but they're certainly not hurting for funds. Our goal this year has been to provide student organizations with the funding that they need, while minimizing the damage to students' pocketbooks. So far, I think we've been pretty successful.
