After one of the most spirited debates of the term, the Student Assembly voted last night to give back $5,000 of its $30,000 allocation from the Undergraduate Finance Council in an effort to urge the College to better fund student organizations.
The resolution also asks the College to supplement the Assembly's donation with $20,000 of its own funds this year, and work for a more permanent fiscal solution in the future.
Resolution sponsor and Assembly Vice-president Case Dorkey '99 said student organizations have been denied needed funds -- last year, organizations requested $102,000 more than the UFC was able to allocate.
The resolution, however, offered no guarantees the money would go to student organizations, only to the UFC, which could then allocate some of its money to the Committee on Student Organizations. If that happened, COSO then distributes its funds to various student organizations.
The resolution only "urges" the UFC to transfer all of the Assembly's donation to COSO.
"I, at least, personally feel confident it will go to COSO," Dorkey said.
The resolution also creates an Assembly-led Task Force on Student Organization Funding to further explore how to correct the underfunding problem.
Many of the concerns raised during debate centered on the issue of whether the $5,000 monetary give-back is worth the risk, since there are no guarantees the College will contribute additional funds, the Assembly funds will go to their desired targets or the reallocation will lead to a lasting solution.
Some Assembly members thought the money would be better spent if it was directly transferred to different organizations.
"I think the Student Assembly should decide where every dollar of this $5,000 goes," Assembly member Juan Gonzalez '02 said.
Other members said they were concerned about the amount of money being spent, despite Dorkey's attempts to compare the large allocation to similar large projects taken up in prior years such as funding Student Advantage cards and the Visions project and partly funding the Kresge Weight Room.
"I have some very real problems with this resolution. With the Student Advantage cards and the weight room there were very tangible results," Assembly member Jason Rubinstein '00 said. "With this, I think we're throwing $5,000 into the wind."
Supporters tried to focus the debate more on the symbolic gesture the action will have and the added weight it will bring to the Assembly's resolution.
"This resolution is largely symbolic even though it allocates $5,000 of our funds," Assembly member Scott Jacobs '99 said.
Others said the money could be better spent in non-symbolic ways.
"The Dartmouth community will extract more marginal benefit from other allocations," Rubinstein said. "There are other symbolic acts that would be just as effective."
Concerns were also voiced about whether this move signals that the Assembly does not really need its entire budget and would lead to budget cut-backs in the future.
Despite the vocal opposition and long debate, the Assembly continued its recent trend of overwhelmingly supporting every resolution brought before the full membership.
The final vote last night was 40 in favor and four against, with two members abstaining.
After the meeting, Assembly President Josh Green '00 told The Dartmouth he was not concerned about spending this sum of money on a project without immediately tangible benefits.
"I think it's important to have a balance between short-term tangible products and ... long-term student issues," Green said. "The Assembly's power is in its ability to make noise, and this resolution raises that in a very strong way."
