The Student Finance Committee is trying for those who serve on it and those who interact with it alike. Members put in long hours cutting overinflated budgets for little thanks; club leaders wait weeks for reimbursements and submit overinflated budgets in fear of being underfunded. Dealing with the distribution of student activities fees will never be simple: the SFC has to guard against misuse of our money, and the policies they make will never be perfect. But there is ample room to improve.

The SFC's main method of funding clubs is reimbursement: club members pay for items approved in their budget, submit receipts or contracts, and get their money back before semester's end. But fronting money requires money, and not all of us can afford to lose chunks of cash for several weeks. The SFC's current system discourages poorer students from joining organizations-in effect, from exerting control over their student activities fee.

This is not a new issue. The obvious alternative-simply giving organizations money-is not viable; it leaves room for all sorts of embezzlement and misuse. However, a solution presents itself. Give the treasurer of each club direct access to the money it's been budgeted. Continue requiring clubs to submit receipts as they spend money; bill any documentedly extraneous or unaccounted-for expenses to the treasurer. This ensures that individuals still foot the bill for non-budgeted items, but doesn't punish club members who can't lay out the cash for their club's next big event. Failing this idea, the SFC could set up purchase order systems with area stores.

Other areas of SFC policy are perplexing. The new rule that Amherst students can't be paid to instruct Amherst clubs seems wasteful; most students are willing to accept much less pay than outside instructors. Some club heads have been told by SFC officers that they must spend all their money or risk taking a funding hit next term; a better way to ensure maximal use of funds might be to set a deadline around mid-semester where clubs can give back funds without penalty. The current system for funding speakers is simply backward; it makes no sense that students must promise a speaker money before they can be assured of getting the money they promised. If there are good reasons for these policies to stay the way they are, they should be public.

The obsession with every club spending all its money also encourages misuse of funds. There's no reason any club should receive funds for food at meetings that aren't public, for example. Increased vigilance about frivolous expenses-and decreased willingness to budget for them in the first place-might leave the SFC more money to work with.