Student Council’s Appropriations Committee allocated its semi-annual funding for the fall semester on Monday night, the first of two processes through which the University’s Contracted Independent Organizations can gain access to funds for the upcoming semester.
All CIOs not currently in debt are eligible to apply for funds – in this case, hundreds of active CIOs. Requests came in for a total of $868,127.18, far exceeding Council’s $550,000 annual budget and their expected allotment of $175,000 for fall’s semi-annual allocations – all of which comes from student activities fees.
Though the numbers are still being finalized, funding is typically awarded in a manner similar to progressive tax-structure – with the first bracket of the request being fully awarded and the upper brackets awarded on a decreasing percentage scale, said Neil Branch, fourth-year College student and Vice President for Organizations.
In addition to the semi-annual requests which involve requests for entire semesters, CIOs can also request funding during one of four rolling rounds.
“Clubs can only participate in one funding type or the other, and then we have another round of [semi-annual funding and rolling rounds] in the spring,” Branch said. Semi-annual rounds tend to draw organizations with higher membership and larger budgets, he said.
“Each round has its own application and hearing process,” said fourth-year College student Ashish Makadia, co-chair of the appropriations committee. “This allows us to clarify ambiguities, give feedback to the CIO, and ask questions regarding line-items on their budgets.”
Many CIOs know well ahead of time they will not receive the entirety of their request. “In past years we’ve gotten at most a quarter to a third of what we have asked for,” said fourth-year Commerce student Sarah Zillioux, president of the Rowing Team. The Rowing Team made its biggest request ever this year, she said – coming in at $54,222, second only to the Sailing Association, who requested more than $60,000.
Athletic clubs took a large portion of funding, comprising eight of the top ten recipients.
Currently, Virginia Polo is set to be the largest recipient of funding, getting $8,715, over $2,000 more than the second-place Virginia Rowing Association. Last year, Polo received almost $13,000 for the entire year.
Some clubs were awarded less than $100 for the semester, such as the Federalist Society and the Black Business Student Forum, which both received less than 10% of their original request. CIOs that wish to receive more funding than their initial allotment can appeal to the committee.
The Climbing Team, which was the most funded CIO during the 2012-2013 academic term, had even more drastic cuts, with about a quarter of the funding for this semester that they received for the entirety of last year. They obtained over $26,000 less than they requested.
To combat applications which make unnecessarily large funding requests in hopes of receiving a larger percentage closer to the CIO’s actual needs, the appropriations committee does attempt to analyze the specifics of each request and gauge how much of the request is truly necessary – though Branch said this is an imperfect system in some respects. “We don’t know everything about crew, or sailing, but part of [these requests] is just the Honor system,” he said.
CIOs are also required to file purchase requests in October and December to verify the amount allocated to them has been used for the items reported during their initial hearings.
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