At a town hall meeting Wednesday night, the Georgetown University Student Association Finance and Appropriations Committee answered questions from students concerned by the new funding reform legislation set for a Monday vote by the GUSA senate.

Under the new legislation, representatives of the Georgetown Program Board and the five advisory boards, which represent university-sponsored student groups on the Funding Board, would lose their power to vote on the student activities budget, and would instead work with the GUSA Executive to create a budget that they would then present to the Finance and Appropriations Committee. Following the committee’s approval of the budget and a seven-day period of public comment, the full GUSA senate would vote on the budget. If it passes the senate, however, the GUSA president would have the power to veto the budget with the possibility of a senate override.

The members of the committee stressed that the legislation is necessary because it will make advisory boards more accountable to students and will provide a more efficient and flexible funding process.

“We want clubs to be able to elect the members on the advisory boards or find some other way to make advisory board members accountable to the groups they represent,” said Sen. Colton Malkerson (COL ’13).

The committee members opened the town hall meeting with a 40-minute presentation of the reforms followed by a period of questions from students.

any of the questions came from club leaders or members of advisory boards, and related to whether clubs would lose funding under the new system, how the GUSA Fund – a source of student activities funding separate from the Funding Board, established by GUSA in November – will operate and how the Finance and Appropriations committee will be able to prove its accountability to students.

SAC Vice Chair Harrison Holcomb (NHS ’11), who attended the town hall, said that SAC is better suited to the job of determining club funding distribution than GUSA is, citing SAC’s technical expertise and experience.

“I think that the advisory boards do bring something unique to the table and it’s something that’s desirable because as advisory boards we’re looking at long-term interests and serving the entire campus community,” he said.

Along with the seven members of the Finance and Appropriations Committee, one representative each from Georgetown Program Board and the five advisory boards -which represent the Center for Social Justice, the Media Board, Club Sports, the Performing Arts Council and SAC – sit on the current Funding Board, which would be abolished as the university’s primary club funding mechanism if the bill is passed by the senate.

ichael Karno (SFS ’10), chair of the Georgetown International Relations Club, which receives the second-highest amount of funding from SAC after the Lecture Fund, took issue with the tone of debate over the legislation.

“Frankly, the process has been disappointing in its attitude,” Karno said in an interview.

Karno also suggested the possibility of a referendum by students to vote on the legislation.

“Something this substantial should go to the student body,” Karno said.

Nick Calta (COL ’10), chairman of the advisory board for Club Sports, said he disagreed with the proposed legislation.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. My job as a Club Sports representative is to represent the club sports to the best of my ability and my ability to represent them is severely reduced if I cannot vote,” Calta said in an interview. “I frankly don’t think GUSA is the best organization to put in charge of the money.”

Calta also cited a lack of research in previous GUSA decisions.

GUTV General Manager Chris Cronbaugh said he is not concerned with the legislation.

“Right now, we can’t see how it will negatively affect us as an organization,” Cronbaugh said.

GUTV is represented by the Media Board advisory board’s representative on the Funding Board.

embers of the committee assured the audience that there are checks and balances that would prevent them from allocating disproportionate amounts of money to GUSA.

“In the new system, all the budgets would have to go through [the Finance and Appropriations committee], be approved, go through the seven-day period of public comment, get voted on by the senate and then approved by the president, so there are more checks than in the current system,” Malkerson said at the town hall meeting.

The committee members also said that under the new system, clubs would be able to apply for lump-sum budgets, which are not an option under the current Funding Board.

They added that if the legislation passes, they plan to assess the state of the Student Activities Fee endowment. Since a 2001 campus-wide referendum, students have paid the $50 Student Activities Fee, half of which is placed in an endowment fund. The fund was initially set to reach $10 million, at which point student activities could be funded purely from the interest; the fund’s current balance is $1.8 million.

“We all want to do what is best [to] enhance campus life and do what’s best for Georgetown students,” said Finance and Appropriations Chair Nick Troiano (COL ’12).

The GUSA senate will vote on the legislation Monday evening.

– Hoya Staff Writer Lauren Weber contributed to this report.”