By Tara Conry

Each semester, $65 is collected from every student at the University, appearing on the tuition bill as “student activity fee.” That figure may seem like an unsubstantial fee, but multiply it by the number of students enrolled at the University and that number reaches over $600,000. So where does this money go?

Until now, only members of the Student Government Association have knowledge and input into how this money is spent. While a percentage is allocated to the Office of Student Activities, the majority of the sum is handed over to SGA, who are given the responsibility of appropriating the money to the roughly 120 student clubs on campus. However, even club leaders only learn about how much their organization received and are too left questioning how hundreds of thousands of dollars of student money is put to use.

Many of the basic facts about the appropriations process, the committee who handles each club’s request for money and the rules that dictate how budgets can be spent are outlined in SGA’s Policy Series, which can be accessed by visiting Hofstra.edu/SGA.

To sum the process up, each club is asked to submit a budget proposal near the end of the spring semester to SGA, members of the Appropriations Committee, literally lock themselves in a room for about eight straight hours, ( sometimes there’s a short break) during what has been designated “Budget Weekend,” and comb through each club’s proposals. They will look at such figures as the amount allocated to the club in previous years and can study the club’s spending habits for the current year, since Student Activities keeps an electronic record of budget requests and club expenses.

“There are a lot of clubs. You have to look at who they serve and what they bring to the campus and what the club needs to exist first and what the club would like in addition,” said SGA Rules Committee Chairman Lisa Giunta.

However, once a club submits a budget proposal they have virtually little say in the appropriations process and must wait from May until September to find out how much they have been granted. In the meantime, the budget process is conducted in closed meetings of the appropriations committee and the Senate. Once the Senate reviews and votes on each proposal, a rough draft of the total budget is sent to the Dean of Students and the Vice President of Student Affairs for approval. No where in this chain of command is a club informed of how their budget proposal was received and what the Senate decided, nor are they given an opportunity to appeal or speak on behalf of their organization. (This does not mean that a club can not request more money throughout the year, but at this point, most of the money has already been allocated.)

Additionally, when the final numbers are revealed in the fall, each club is only informed of the amount they received, while budgets of other clubs are kept private. Disclosing them would be a violation of the SGA’s rules of executive session that forbid members from revealing certain information.

This year, SGA has become even more transparent though. In a document obtained by The Chronicle, the final budgets granted to clubs for the 2006-07 academic year is outlined. This document, which is believed to have been linked by a member of SGA, reveals both the amount each club requested and what was finally appropriated to them by SGA.

“I do not think it’s a bad idea,” Giunta said. “I don’t like that it was leaked. I think it was leaked for petty reasons.”

While SGA as a whole had little control over the disclosure of the budget information, Giunta said she could see the potential for some positive outcomes, if for no other reason that to spark a dialogue about the issues at hand.

“I think that it’s a good thing we can think about how we approach the budget in terms of whether we want club privacy versus the students’ right to know how their student activity fee is being used,” Giunta said.

As the process stands now, there are not strict guidelines as to how to determine how much money clubs should receive and no quotas dictating how funding should be distributed among different types of clubs such as sports, performance and activists groups.

“There are restrictions that are given in terms of what student activities money, which is appropriated to clubs, can be used for; There obviously can’t be discrimination, “Giunta said. “But there is discretion by first the appropriations committee and then the Senate when it reviews it, as to how to appropriate the funding.”

There is much to consider and each year the Senate spends at least three hours debating the budget alone.

“If you were to look at how much the clubs request in total, it’s much more than what we have to give. So a lot of it has to do with us as student representatives trying to find out the best way to serve all the students,” Giunta said.

While Giunta said that SGA usually tries to distribute money in a way that the most students will benefit from it, but sometimes some of the smaller clubs require large budgets to exists. This is especially true among sports clubs.

“They provide a really great thing for the campus, but they cost a lot of money and if you don’t give them the money they request it’s hard for them to function,” she said. “Ice hockey, for example, needs certain ice rink time, it can’t function if it doesn’t have ice rink time.”

On top of meeting the immediate needs of the 120 existing clubs, SGA must also plan ahead for clubs that may form in the fall or spring. This year alone, as well as be prepared for when clubs come asking for additional money later in the year when they have exhausted their funds.

This year alone, about 10 -15 new clubs have been formed, all of which require budgets to function, though they are usually only given small amounts to start off.

“There’s been talk about revamping how many clubs you have,” Giunta said, adding that the Rules Committee, whose job it is to approve clubs, have little power over blocking a club from forming so long as they have submitted the required paperwork and proved that their purpose does not conflict with that of existing organizations.

However, Giunta said it would be difficult to set caps or limits on the numbers of clubs that could exist. “How do you decide which club will float and which club will sink?”

The Appropriations Committee currently meets every Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in room 207 of the Student Center. Clubs who wish to submit budget proposals to be considered by the committee, however, must sign up before hand in room 207.