One hundred and fifty nine of Syracuse University’s 334 recognized student organizations cannot request funding from the Student Association this year because they did not attend the new mandatory fiscal training classes.

Student organizations are required to submit their budgets to SA by 6 p.m. today if they hope to receive funding. SA passed a bill in February requiring all student organizations to attend one fiscal training session before submitting a budget. The classes were held Feb. 21, 22 and 28 and March 1.

Forty-seven percent of student organizations did not attend the meetings, but those who need SA funding will have to apply for special programming, which will start the second week of fall semester, said Lily Mei, SA’s comptroller.

There will be no exceptions to this rule, Mei said. A signature from the organization’s Office of Student Life advisor is required to submit a budget, Mei said, and SA provided the office with a list of organizations that are not allowed to apply.

Mei said the fiscal training helped most to distribute her contact information to organizations that needed further help with planning their budget.

‘It did help also to elaborate on what our definition of collaboration is and what we look for in a program,’ Mei said. ‘Some students don’t know that we don’t fund for travel; we don’t fund for student DJs.’

The next step in the budgeting process is budget hearings. Organizations that submitted budgets will have to defend their plans to SA’s Finance Board, Mei said. While this is not absolute, organizations that miss or come late to their hearings are usually denied funding, she said.

‘The hearings are a crucial part to the budgeting because it’s the only chance they have to further explain their programs in detail and to answer any questions that the Finance Board may have,’ she said.

SA denied funding to WERW radio and 20 Watts magazine, a music publication owned by WERW, in April as two of 10 groups that missed their budget hearings with the Finance Board. Representatives from both groups claimed miscommunication between SA and the organizations as the reason for their missing the hearings.

But some organizations chose not to attend the fiscal training because they did not need funding from SA or had been denied funding in previous years.

Sarah Heins, president of the Newman Association, a Catholic student organization, attended the training last year, the first year it was offered before it became mandatory. She said that in previous years she has applied for funding but was denied. At the training, she discovered that much of her organization’s activities are not the type that SA funds, so she decided not to go this year.

‘We have our own means of funding,’ said Heins, a junior anthropology and math major. ‘We charge for parking for basketball games in our parking lot (at the St. Thomas More Alibrandi Catholic Center).’

Organizations, like the SU chapter of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, receive funding through their associated professional school. In the case of AIAA, it is funded by the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, said Greg Papp, the organization’s president.

AIAA participates in outreach programs to middle schools and attends an annual regional conference. In previous years, it had also been receiving funding for these activities from SA, but Papp said he decided not to apply for funding this year because the organization already has a budget from L.C. Smith and got extra money for attending the school’s fiscal training last summer.

‘The money we’re going to spend for the conference is hotel, registration and travel,’ said Papp, a junior aeronautics major. ‘That money, plus the bonus money, is going to more than double what we need for our conference. I figure with the economy the way it is, we don’t need to take any more money than we need.’

Having gone to L.C. Smith’s fiscal training, Papp said he understands why SA would require all organizations to attend a training session before submitting a budget proposal.

‘I think it’s good that they’re disqualifying organizations that aren’t going to fiscal training,’ Papp said. ‘For my group, if we didn’t have fiscal training over the summer, we’d be a lot worse off.’

Other student organization presidents said they feel like mandatory attendance is too much to ask. David Silberstein, president of SU’s chapter of Keep a Child Alive, an AIDS awareness organization, said he believes organizations should not be penalized for missing the sessions.

‘I do not think the training should have any implication on whether or not you can apply,’ said Silberstein, a senior communications and rhetorical studies major. ‘Students are giving up a lot of time for their organizations, and having one thing slip through the cracks, it’s not really fair.’

Although Silberstein missed the training sessions and wanted funding from SA, in retrospect, he said the fiscal training probably wouldn’t have helped. He said he will continue funding the organization through fundraisers and paying out of pocket.

‘All my work with the organization, all the budget requests we have filled out, we have not been granted one cent,’ he said. ‘So, it’s almost like ‘Why am I going to put that extra effort in when the outcome’s inevitable?”

rhkheel@syr.edu

Published on March 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm