The adverse effects of the sour economy have trickled down to many of the University’s contracted independent organizations. Since the economic meltdown, CIOs have faced a decline in donations and corporate sponsorships, resulting in a surge of requests for additional funds from Student Council. But Council appropriation funds have remained stagnant.
The decline in funding
In the current economic climate, alumni are “giving a lot less” to groups, while professional groups have seen corporate patrons drop sponsorships, said Brendan Whittington, Student Council appropriations committee co-chair. CIOs are therefore turning to appropriations from Student Council’s Student Activities Fund, which comes from a fee — set by University administrators — charged to students each year.
“Times are harder and people are a lot less likely to donate, and costs aren’t dropping either,” said Whittington, who is currently a candidate for the Council vice president of organizations position. “It’s a challenge.”
For example, the men’s rowing team has seen a 50 percent drop in donations in the last two years, coach Will Oliver said.
“Two years ago, we got over $100,000 in donations,” he said. “Last year we started to see that drop to about $85,000, and now we’re seeing $50,000.”
Funding also has decreased for groups that Council Appropriations Committee Co-Chair Ashley Hall described as not normally asking for SAF money.
One such group, the Virginia Sil’hooettes, requested Council appropriations after seeing a decline in performance requests, which are a major source of revenue for the group, Sil’hooettes Business Manager Courtney Stroud said.
“We perform in the Rotunda and for [academic] departments, but for the last semester, when we contacted events to inquire whether they need anything, they say, ‘Unfortunately, due to our budgets, we’ve had to cut back,’ and entertainment is the first thing they’re going to cut,” Stroud said. “We’re a very performance-based group, so we have to find new outlets to do things. It forces us to be more creative and find other ways to raise money.”
Stroud noted, however, that she was surprised by how quickly the state of the economy has affected unsuspecting CIOs.
“I didn’t think it would be so dramatic so quickly,” Stroud said.
How groups are coping
Meanwhile, many student organizations were forced to cut back on their expenses to compensate for the decline in funding. The University Sailing Association has stopped staying in hotels during trips, instead requesting lodging at the schools to which members travel, Sailing Commodore Whit Overstreet said. Cutting such costs, though, has not prevented the club’s need to double its dues to $120. At the same time, reduced funds also forced Collegiate Mock Trial, which attends “pretty elite tournaments,” to remain in the area, Mock Trial President Juliana Yee said.
“This year we were hoping to attend a UCLA tournament, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to go to UCLA because it’s expensive to fly,” Yee said. “We have to stay confined to the East Coast and drive to places that are far away just to save money.”
Kayla Wherry, Student Council vice president for organizations, said that as non-SAF resources declined, there was a significant increase in both the number of groups requesting additional funds and the amount of money asked for. This resulted in an appropriations budget crisis, brought about because of the rippling effects of economic meltdown.
Appropriations requests likely tripled since last year, Wherry said, noting that more than $2 million was requested — even though Council only has $625,000. Consequently, budget cuts have increased to a high of about 61 percent.
“Our only option was to give across-the-board cuts to groups,” Wherry said. “We felt really bad for doing that, but when you have a finite amount of money, there’s not much you can do about it.”
Inflated CIO budgets, written to compensate for budget cuts, partially aggravated the problem, Whittington said.
“We’re taking greater and greater scrutiny of budgets to make sure they are what [the organizations] say they are,” he said, adding that “we’ve had to cut down on [appropriating excessive amounts of money] by having groups come in with receipts or actual prices so they can justify their purchases.”
Council also encouraged groups to raise additional funds independently, rather than depending solely on the SAF, Whittington said.
“With budget cuts as high as they are and the number of groups increasing while the underlying funds are lying flat ... that’s the only way groups will be able to sustain their activities,” Whittington said.
Wherry added that the large number of groups asking for additional funds has adverse implications for all student organizations receiving money from the SAF.
“We want to support them, but I think groups need to think about the larger picture and think about what they’re doing to all groups when they add things [to their budgets] that they don’t necessarily need,” she said.
Some groups, such as the men’s rowing team, have a history of actively fundraising to supplement SAF money, Oliver said. But even though fundraising helps assuage the burden of expenses, it also comes with some negative repercussions, he added.
“Every year, guys have to do more fundraising, but the more we ask them to do outside of practice, the less likely [it is that we will] retain first-years who already have a lot on their plates,” Oliver said. “The more the guys have to do, the more they decide it’s not worth it.
The SAF’s woes
The SAF, though, was never meant to be the sole source of funding for organizations, Student Council leaders said.
“A lot of CIOs depend on the SAF too much to be their sole source of funding, but that’s not what it was originally meant to be,” Wherry said. “It was meant to be sort of an additive: something to get them started and to get them to a point where they could be self-sufficient.”
The available money from the SAF for student organizations has hovered around $625,000 annually for years, Wherry said. It is not Student Council, but the Student Activities Committee — which consists of various University administrators — that approves the amount of SAF money available for appropriations.
With this in mind, a successful attempt to mitigate the necessity for CIO appropriation budget cuts was implemented this school year, Council President Matt Schrimper said.
“In the fall, we instituted what we call a 60-day rule, which basically says that if [organizations] don’t spend the money in 60 days, then they have to give it back and we reallocate it to other organizations,” Schrimper said. “This has been a huge improvement and we’ve had more money at our disposal to give to other organizations, and thus make the entire system more efficient.”
In addition, the influx in requests also may reflect Council’s ability to connect with student groups and increase CIO awareness about the appropriations process, Schrimper said.
“I think they see Student Council as a reliable source of funding, which is great because I think we’ve built better lines of communication with organizations,” he said.
Yet some attribute existing problems to the attempted equality of the appropriations process.
Budget cuts were created across the board so that they would be equal, said Colin Hood, Safety and Wellness Committee vice chair, “but unfortunately it hurts everyone.”
For instance, the cuts affect both large and small student organizations, but in slightly different ways, said Hood, who is currently running against Whittington for the vice president of organizations position. Large organizations, with larger budgets, lose more money than smaller organizations, though both suffer the same percentage of budget cuts, he added.
Nevertheless, “the small CIOs hurt just as much as large CIOs that need money to continue their large projects because they don’t have the same resources as large CIOs,” Hood said. “Small CIOs may not be able to form with the budget cuts,” whereas larger CIOs might be able to weather the economic storm.
Possibilities for the future
Both contenders for Council vice president for organizations said they have developed plans to address the budget problems now affecting many student organizations.
Whittington said he hopes to maintain a dialogue between Council and student organizations to dispel any misunderstandings about the appropriations process.
“We’re going to continue to emphasize our information and disclosure and we have a Treasurer’s Manual information session planned,” Whittington said. “Keeping the dialogue open between us and the groups will [ensure] that all the correct information is relayed.”
Additionally, Whittington outlined a four-part plan to confront the problem with what he called “real solutions.” The first part involves “an online inventory system of club assets that may be rented out to other groups” to alleviate stress on the SAF. The system will benefit groups who lend their equipment by lowering their percentage of budget cuts, and also will benefit those who borrow the equipment, because they won’t have to independently purchase the equipment.
The second part of Whittington’s plan aims to create incentives for group fundraising, while the third aims to reimplement Council’s CIO Consulting Committee and the Board of Audit and Management, which Whittington said should focus on educating student organizations about the appropriations process while increasing the system’s transparency. The final part of his plan calls for the formation of an ad-hoc committee of Council members, Appropriations Committee members and leaders of student organizations to revise the current Treasurer’s Manual to find a “fair and balanced solution,” according to Whittington’s campaign platform.
Hood, meanwhile, said he also has planned a viable approach to revising the appropriations process.
Although Hood’s plan also aims to increase cooperation between CIOs and Council, he said he also plans to assign each organization a CIO consultant to help with alternative funding opportunities and appropriations. The CIO consultants will help CIOs preparing efficient budgets, which could ameliorate the adverse effects of poorly drafted budgets in the context of significant budget cuts, Hood said.
Hood said he does not believe budget cuts are completely attributable to the number of groups requesting funds, and added that he vows not only to lobby the University administration for additional SAF funds, but also to inform CIOs of other means of securing funding, such as concession fundraising. These measures will minimize CIO reliance on SAF funds while at the same time decreasing existing budget cuts, according to Hood’s appropriations plan. Comparatively, Whittington said he believes increasing the available SAF funds is unlikely, noting that decreasing budget cuts by increasing the Student Activities fee is — in light of the University’s current economic situation — unrealistic. The University also has suffered state budget cuts and endowment losses, and it would be difficult to convince the University to spend more than it already is, according to Whittington’s platform.
Noting that “Budget cuts are consistently high,” though, Hood said, “Some people say the problem is that there are too many clubs and not enough money, but you need to lobby the administration for more money.” He also admits, however, that doing so will be “his biggest challenge” if he is elected.
Regardless of how the vice president for organization’s race shapes out, Whittington or Hood will have to bear the burden of the many budgetary challenges, some of which may have not even come to light.
“They give you free reign and they trust you to be honest with what you’re spending; you can really sink or swim,” Overstreet said of how student groups are allowed to spend SAF funds. “The Appropriations Committee [members] have the most thankless job. They get pinched by the school and screamed at by student organizations who aren’t given enough.”
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