Yesterday's release of the Undergraduate Finance Committee's allocations for various student organizations shows little change from last year, but there is debate over how to fund the recently created Greek Leadership Council.
While the now defunct Coed Fraternity Sorority Council received $12,000 last year, this year's GLC -- which replaced the CFSC this Fall term -- was allotted $10,000.
The Programming Board received the bulk of the UFC's budget garnering $372,000.
Other recipients included the Collis Governing Board at $24,000, the Committee on Student Organizations at $185,000, the Class Councils at $25,500, the Office of Student Life at $27,000 and the Student Assembly at $41,500.
The GLC's request for $2,000 for a discretionary fund was particularly contentious, UFC member Stratos Pahis '04 said.
As "efficiency was a prime reason" for the creation of the GLC, Pahis said that members of the committee questioned why the new organization would need such a large discretionary fund.
"Some students felt that the GLC is more of a consortium than a centralized programming body," said Aly Rahim '02. "Since its job is to empower the subcouncils -- not to be a centralized programming organization itself -- we wondered if it would be best to fund the subcouncils directly."
By an anonymous vote of 13-1, the UFC agreed to fund the newly formed organization, but to grant the GLC $10,000 instead of $12,000, withholding the $2,000 for the proposed discretionary fund.
"We have supported Greeks in the past, and we have supported the events the Greeks hold for all students," said Molly Stutzman '02, student body president and UFC committee chair, explaining the UFC's rationale.
She added that as the money the UFC allocates comes from student activities fees collected from tuition, the UFC may find that it has more money to grant to student organizations in Spring term.
"The College never knows exactly how many students are going to be on when," she said, "and their estimates of how much money the College will collect tend to be conservative."
Likewise, the UFC debated whether or not to withdraw the $12,000 that had been allocated to the defunct CFSC for the 2001-02 school year.
Eventually, the committee members opted to allow the GLC to keep $10,000, but agreed that the UFC would meet again in next term to decide whether or not they could receive the remaining $2,000 at that time.
"We just wanted to see what the GLC would be like in action," committee member Ryan Bennett '04 said. "It wasn't the case that we didn't think they deserved the money."
Other noteworthy changes included an additional $5,000 that was granted to Student Assembly to be used specifically for the refurbishment of the Tom Dent cabin.
The Office of Student Life also received an extra $2,000 to support the Diversity Peer Program.
The Office of Student Life received several outside grants last year to fund the program, but they were to be used only during the program's inaugural year. Thus, Stutzman said that the UFC wanted to grant the Office of Student Life additional money to ensure that the program could continue.
As the UFC grants the majority of its funds to the Programming Board, Rahim noted that the committee strove to fulfill the requests of the organizations with smaller budgets first before giving the remaining funds to the Board.
All of the committee members who spoke with The Dartmouth expressed their satisfaction with the committee's work.
"I think all groups were listened to and all concerns and proposals were heard," Bennett said.
