SGA Strikes Against Disfavored Student Groups With New Funding Rule

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Last week, the Student Government Association (SGA) at UT-Tyler voted to approve a rule change in the appropriations committee’s guidelines that excludes semester-long requests, explicitly targeting student groups who meet throughout the semester.

SGA Treasurer Jacob Mcleod said the new rule is to prevent student organizations who provide pizza at their weekly meetings from tying up SGA funding. The two-time Treasuerer said these groups prevent the Student Government Appropriations Committee (SGAC) from issuing funding grants to student groups who come to the committee later or near the end of the semester.

“We will not approve semester-long funding requests,” Mcleod told the assembly, reading the new rule aloud.

“If an event is reoccurring, the committee encourages student organizations to submit a funding request for each event. Funding will be determined on a case-by-case basis,” he read.

However, according to Mcleod, of the student organizations with regular meetings who requested money early in the semester for pizza at their meetings, most did not use all of the money they were approved for by semester’s end.

“We decided to do this because last year at the beginning of the semester, we’d get huge requests for $500 in total for their recurring events throughout the semester,” he said.

Each registered student organizations may receive up to $500 each semester, according to SGAC rules.

“After we approve out the funds, we just try not to exceed the budget line,” he said. “So we can’t approve more than we have, and that locks up our funding. This just makes it more efficient and inclusive.”

NO GROUP DENIED LAST SEMESTER

Mcleod said that despite multiple student groups being approved for funds that went unspent, the committee did not have to turn away any requesting group last year due of lack of available SGA funds.

However, some groups had to amend their request to match the amount of funds that were still available in the budget.

SGA Advisor and Assistant Director of Student Life and Leadership Joshua Neaves estimated that approximately $1,200 went unspent by student groups out of an over $6,000 budget, but The Campus Conservative has not confirmed these numbers.

The University did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what happens to money that is left over in SGAC’s budget at the end of each fiscal year.

MEETINGS DON'T BENEFIT STUDENTS 

However, while Mcleod touted inclusion as the reason for the new rule, his committee member Sen. Maritza Mendez (College of Arts and Sciences) told the assembly the rule was because the committee looked unfavorably upon student groups that request SGAC funding for their regular meetings.

“Last semester, I was in SGA with Jacob and we talked about changing some of those rules,” the second year senator said.

“There was lots(sic) of organizations coming in about having those meetings and wanted to have pizza, and we thought that they weren’t really contributing, like it was just for their organizations, say about business. It wasn’t benefiting the entire campus for a wide event,” she said.

“They were getting this money and they weren’t using it, and it could have been used for other organizations. So, we decided to kind of make up another rule to kind of use that money instead of just being left over from their organization [inaudible],” she said.

“Like HSA (Hispanic Student Association) had an event, and I think they had a really good turnout and it would support everyone on campus. It wasn’t just business or a just a small meeting [inaudible] but bigger. So that’s how we decided to include more administrative rules about it,” she said.

Now that SGA approved the rule change, student organizations leaders must submit one request for each event they wish SGAC to fund as well as attend an SGAC hearing for each request their organization submits.

Student organizations The Financial Management Association, Beta Alpha Psi, Accounting Society, Math Club and the Pre-Pharmacy Association who submitted semester-long funding requests last semester for their recurring meetings did not respond to requests for comment by the time The Campus Conservative published this article.

SGAC appropriations funds come from the mandatory Student Services Fee ($12 per semester credit hour, $150 maximum).

BLOG REACTION

SGA steps out of its proper role by attempting to police how students use their own money, since its students who pay for SGA’s appropriations budget through the mandatory Student Services Fee.

Rather than take opportunity away from other students who have a right to access student money, SGA should seek to increase the appropriations budget so that there is plenty of money for everybody throughout the semester.

RELATED: Students' First Amendment Rights Need Better Protection In SGA Appropriations Committee

Instead of behaving like a parent regulating her child’s activities (which is how SGAC apparently see its role), SGA should realize its real function to act as a custodian of student wealth and see that its responsibility is to establish secure and uniform processes distributing the estates’ wealth. This is what custodians do. Custodians do not become the arbiters of taste for inheritors but simply make sure the inheritance is available for rightful heirs when they want it.

Another problem with operating as an investment firm is that it is now possible for event-oriented student groups to use up the entirety of student funding before requestors with weekly meetings make it through the semester without receiving the full $500 to which they are entitled. This leaves the scales still unbalanced, but this time, it is not a result of individual student leaders' contribution but SGA's fault for meddling.

Investors invest their own money. Custodians steward somebody else’s money. SGA should stay within its role as custodian and not venture outside of that by policing the heirs. As a custodian, SGA does a lot less harm when it allows students to access their own money without wrongful discrimination.

Twitter: @jhescock

To learn more about how paternalism animates nearly all government intervention, check out this video clip from award-winning economist Milton Friedman or this article from the CATO Institute, "Paternalism And Principle."