Despite uncertainty surrounding next year’s funding for student organizations, the Georgetown University Student Association voted to pass its 2009-2010 budget on Wednesday night, ending months of conflict between GUSA and SAC and securing nearly $375,000 in funding for student groups.

“I would say that if anything, I’m glad this issue is being raised and people are taking the time to talk about it,” GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ’11) said. “It was good that it passed, [but] not as good about the provisions of it and that some issues weren’t addressed; but . I did the best of my ability to get those issues addressed and will continue to do so.”

The Funding Board, which is comprised of 13 members, including seven GUSA senators and six student group chairs as well as staff advisers, approved the SAC budget on Feb. 11. GUSA needed to approve the budget in order for it to take effect. GUSA voted the budget down in late February before Angert’s election, citing concerns about excess reserve funds.

Every student funding board deposits unspent money into the reserve fund at the end of each year. Reserve fund money is used for club emergencies and to cover risk. According to SAC Chair Aakib Khaled (SFS ’11), there is currently $195,000 in the SAC reserve fund. He said the amount would probably increase by the end of the year as clubs add their surplus money to the fund.

By 2008, the reserve funds had accumulated $800,000. In the past, GUSA had made plans to address the size of the reserve funds. Last year, each board set a goal amount for their reserve fund. However, currently student groups and GUSA cannot reach a consensus.

Angert began Wednesday’s meeting with an executive briefing, defending his position that the funding boards should be required to reduce their reserve funds. In the GUSA presidential

election this March, Angert ran on a platform of reducing reserve funds, citing clubs’ tendency to accumulate surplus funds throughout the year.

Angert said that despite his reservations, GUSA should still pass the budget.

“This is one of those times when GUSA, as an executive and as a senate, should rise above and do what is incumbent upon us as elected officials, and that is, serve the students,” he said.

Angert criticized GUSA Finance and Appropriations Committee Chair Matt Wagner (SFS ’11) for failing to reconvene the Funding Board after GUSA voted down its budget in February.

Wagner said that he tried to reconvene the board several times, but that it was difficult to arrange a time when all 13 members and faculty advisers could meet.

“For my failure to do it I apologize, but I stick to my principle that I tried to do it,” Wagner said.

Because the GUSA Senate could not initially reach a consensus on the budget issue, GUSA Vice Speaker Nick Troiano (COL ’11) proposed amending the bylaws so that the senate could vote on the budget line-by-line in order to approve funding for Club Sports, Welcome Week and Homecoming, which he said needed the most immediate funding.

Troiano’s proposal was voted down after Senator Justin Kirschner (COL ’11) said that it would be unfair to vote on individual parts of the budget because no one from the Georgetown Program Board, the Georgetown Media Board or Performing Arts Advisory Council had been able to present in the time allotted to Funding Board chairs.

Wagner criticized Troiano for his solutions to the budget problem.

“The person who wants to be more in control of university money is showing why [GUSA] should not be in charge because we are playing games with the money we already have,” Wagner said.

During the meeting, representatives of the various funding boards and student groups addressed the senate on the importance of SAC funding to their organizations.

Earlier this week, Kendall Dollive (SFS ’09), chair of the Center for Social Justice Advisory Board for Student Organizations, sent an e-mail to CSJ groups describing difficulties in approving next year’s budget.

“The funding boards became aware of GUSA senate concerns about the budget only a few weeks ago,” Dollive said. “Not knowing whether we will receive the funds proposed in the budget, we cannot yet finalize the budgets for [each] organization.”

Despite the concerns raised two years ago and most recently by Angert regarding excess reserves, Dollive said that events like Relay For Life and Hoyathon need the money from the reserve fund in order to take out loans for their fundraising events.

David Hammerman (MSB ’11), co-chair of this year’s Relay For Life, said in an e-mail that future Relays would be severely affected if the budget did not pass.

“I . hope that GUSA realizes the underlying fallacy of their reasoning and continues to fund CSJ ABSO, which helps so many needed and unbelievable organizations,” Hammerman said. “It would be a sad day when groups like DC Schools [Project], DC Reads, STAND [Student Anti-Genocide Coalition], and the other social justice groups were forced to cut their budgets and cut back on what they can offer the community.”

Beyond CSJ concerns, Khaled said that if GUSA did not pass the budget, SAC’s budget would be reduced by 25 percent, thereby forcing SAC to re-evaluate its allocation of club funds for next year.

“If we don’t have this money, then a lot of the high risk activities [in the future] can’t go on, like, for example, Rangila,” said Juliana Pugliese, SAC co-chair.

Nick Calta (COL ’10), who represents Club Sports, said that if the budget were not passed, Club Sports would lose 93 percent of its funding and would have to rely almost exclusively on student funding for next year. He said that almost all of its reserve fund is depleted each summer so that club hockey can reserve ice for the upcoming year.

“There are clubs that could die because of this,” he said.

The SAC budget was passed by a majority vote. Twenty-seven senators voted yes; one voted no; two abstained.

“The funds would never have been in jeopardy,” GUSA Speaker Reggie Greer (COL ’09) said. “If it would have required a special session, we would have done it.”

Angert reacted positively to the passing of the budget.

“I’m glad it passed. I think it needed to pass,” Angert said. “If groups were going to be hurt by this – for example club sports would have been a group that suffered from this – I think it was important to pass it; but I think it could have come to another end. It’s unfortunate that it came to this one.”

Corrections: This article originally stated that the SAC reserve fund had accrued $800,000 by 2008. $800,000 is the sum total of all student groups’ reserve funds. The article also originally stated that two years ago, student groups set goals for their reserve funds. Student groups set goals for their reserve funds last year. The article originally stated that Aakib Khaled said, “If we don’t have this money, then a lot of the high risk activities [in the future] can’t go on, like, for example, Rangila.” This quote should be attributed to Juliana Pugliese.

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