The Black Voices vocal group withdrew its request for financial support from the Student Activities Fund at the Student Council meeting Tuesday evening after receiving notice that the appropriations committee had introduced a bill to audit the group's finances.
Council is in charge of allotting the SAF to student groups based on their demonstrated financial needs. The Council appropriations committee decided to audit Black Voices to obtain more information before considering the funding request.
"We were concerned that we could not adequately assess their funds," said fourth-year College student Howard Anderson, the member of Council appropriations committee who oversaw Black Voices' request.
In the 2001-2002 fiscal year, Black Voices received $8,340 in SAF funding. The previous year they received $2,650, according to Student Activities Business Manager William Hancher.
Council Executive Vice President Adam Swann stressed that the proposed audit was not meant to suggest misconduct on the part of Black Voices.
"An audit is neither meant to be accusatory nor imply wrongdoing," Swann said. "It is just meant to gather more information."
The representative body of the Council was scheduled to vote on the audit bill at Tuesday's meeting. However, the bill was postponed -- probably indefinitely -- after Vice President for Organizations Kelly Harris read a letter, signed by several members of the Black Voices Executive Board, withdrawing the request for funding from the SAF.
"It was news to me when Kelly brought in the letter," Council President Abby Fifer said. "I did not know prior to that point that Black Voices was going to do that."
Jason Cross, Black Voices vice president for musical development, said the group's decision to withdraw its funding request was not prompted solely by the potential audit.
"It was the hassle and the extraneous meetings" that prompted the decision, he said. "The audit was the straw that broke the camel's back."
Cross said the group has anticipated financial autonomy for some time. He also said that the fact that Black Voices is a religious group has raised questions regarding the ethics of the group receiving SAF money in the past.
"Black Voices has been moving toward self-sufficiency for awhile," he said. In the past, "Black Voices has been catching a lot of harshness about the fact that we are a religious organization."
Though the lack of SAF funding would make Black Voices a financially independent group, Harris noted this does not change the group's technical status.
"We have 450 to 475 student organizations on campus and only 206 receive funding," Harris said. "The majority of student organizations don't receive funds."
April marks Black Voices' 30th anniversary -- a milestone which Cross said has helped attract financial donations from alumni.
"We have garnered a lot of alumni support," Cross said.
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