Budget committee Chair Livia Angiolillo '04 is confident that students will eventually appreciate the advantages of the new system. "Last year, we ran out of money in March. This year, we won't run out so quickly … we have enough money," said Angiolillo.
There was no rollover of money from last semester's student fees as there usually is each semester, which explains why the overall pool of money is over $16,000 smaller. "Due to circumstances regarding the financial state of the [Student Finance Committee (SFC)] in the spring of 2002, money was spent that was not initially anticipated, and as a result, the available pool is smaller this semester," said Angiolillo.
Sixty percent of the entire pool of student activities fees was used for club budgets and administrative purposes, meaning a total of $63, 645.38 was allocated to clubs in the budget that was just released. Last year, discretionary funds, appeals and programming composed 14 percent of the budget, while this year those categories compose 40 percent of the budget. Ten percent has been marked for appeals, 10 percent for discretionary expenses and 20 percent for programming money.
The student activity fee of $178 per student yielded $287,826 for this semester, according to Assistant Dean of Student Samuel Haynes.
According to Angiolillo, the system was changed to safeguard against unnecessary expenditures.
"We can't afford to allocate money to clubs only to realize at the end that the money was not spent and as a result couldn't be given out to other clubs," said Angiolillo.
AAS budgetary committee member Elan Ghazal '05 also emphasized the improvement over the previous method. "The (SFC) in the past has spent all the money in the beginning, so it didn't have leeway and had to go into reserves … we'll have more money later in the semester for other programs," he said. "We have less money overall, but the way it's given out this year is different from previous years, which I think is what is causing the confusion."
The budgetary committee is also insisting that clubs provide signed contracts before they are given the money for events where contracts are appropriate. However, Angiolillo noted that the fine print of the contract states that it is contingent upon approval by the College.
Student-run radio station WAMH is among campus organizations concerned that they were not allocated enough money to continue to exist.
WAMH received $2,996, or about 18 percent of its requested budget of $16,590, which is approximately what it has been allocated in previous semesters.
Licenses, electricity for its transmitter and phone lines are some of the biggest sections of WAMH's budget, according to Kim Webster, the station's general manager.
"There is no way we can possibly operate, technically or legally, with our current allocation," said Webster. "The AAS did not even allocate some of our expenses that are the epitome of essential and predictable, like our transmitter telephone line cost."
Webster explained that it may have appeared to the budgetary committee that they did not always spend all of their allocation due to a variety of reasons. "Competition between the organizations [to which the station must pay royalties], differences in the manner in which each company determines which artist gets what share of the company's collected fees, changes in what music is popular and changes in what WAMH plays all affect our fees," said Webster. "Our royalty fees are essential, and we know that they will come, even if we're not entirely sure when."
The sailing team is in a similar situation. "We can't operate with $660.00 a semester. They gave us no money for coaching, no money for new sails and no money for the dues we pay to the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association, which might make trouble for us as far as competing goes," said Caleb Murphy '04, vice-president of the team.
"We pride ourselves on being a club sport with relatively low dues so that any student can participate. We really can't raise dues without destroying that," he said.
Some organizations feel that if they follow the rules of the new allocation system, they will eventually receive the money they need. "We understand why our initial allocation was less than what we need, and we are confident that if we stay on top of things, we will be able to appeal for all the funds that we need to continue," said Matt Gordon, who is the co-captain of the crew team. "We are not too worried."
However, the Amherst College Republicans are worried about how their allocation, which totals 50 dollars, will affect the quality of their club. "If the budgetary committee doesn't give the Republicans the money they need in discretionary and programming funding, they will essentially eliminate the voice of dissent on this campus," said Theodore Hertzberg '04, who is the chairman of the club. "They gave us 50 dollars for campaign efforts … we got an 80 percent cut after doing more than any club in our field last year. We can't join with other chapters of the Republicans with that money."
Hertzberg does not feel that applying for money from discretionary funds is an adequate solution, because for many events it is necessary to have money before the budgetary committee can be presented with a receipt. The club wanted to arrange for a speaker like U.S. Representative J.C. Watts to speak this semester, but is hesitant to do so without the guarantee of payment from the budgetary committee. Other events they had hoped to receive funding for included a Veteran's Day rally and a conservative awareness week, which are not contingent on contracts.
Some have blamed the frantic concern about budgets on a lack of communication on the part of the AAS. Angiolillo explained that part of the communication problem is due to the fact that last spring's elections took place much later than expected. "We weren't able to form a committee until we got back on campus after the summer," said Angiolillo. "This is still the earliest the budgets have ever come out."
Angiolillo explained that the budgetary committee used data from recent semesters to see what clubs had historically spent. In addition, they took an inventory of what equipment already existed on campus.
Due to the smaller budget, the committee felt it was a semester to conserve and reuse. "We will tell people where to find on campus some of the resources they requested money for," said Angiolillo.
The committee did not allocate any money to purchase food for informal club meetings, and denied requests to finance movie rentals unless the club could prove that the desired movie was not in the College library. Also, any club that was allocated publicity funding was limited to $10 per event.
"Based on data from the last two semesters, we made the fairest judgment we could," said Angiolillo.