One of the areas of the Associated Student Government’s greatest impact is their allocation of student fees to academic clubs and club sports to attend conferences, championships or host events that impact students or the greater Grand Junction community.
To receive these funds, members of each club must first present in front of the Fee Allocation Committee (FAC) and, if their proposal passes this stage, in front of ASG.
Each club has a worthy cause. Nearly every club has done numerous fundraisers. Some even require members to contribute out-of-pocket to the total cost of the trip or event before they approach ASG requesting more funds.
So, how do senators decide what bills to pass? How do they decide if they should cut the rental car fee from one club, but not from another?
Some common factors that influence senators’ decisions on which bills and what parts of them to cut are: how much the club has fundraised, how many students are affected, and if the trip will influence their academic department or Colorado Mesa University as a whole.
But, the most common factor is senators’ desire to pass nearly every bill with minimal or no cuts.
ASG does keep detailed records of the status of each of the four budgets they control: the student-controlled reserve fund (SCRF), the regional and national championship fund (RNCF), the transportation budget and their operating budget.
At the beginning of each meeting, the FAC chair briefly reviews the status of these budgets for senators. This reminder, however, seems to have little to no effect on how most senators vote during meetings.
Although some senators, notably Jeff Vela and Richard Nguyen, have been proponents of fiscal responsibility, most seem to determine their vote based upon whether or not clubs deserve the funding, rather than ASG’s budgetary status.
While it’s important to provide the means for students to attend conferences and competitions, the rate at which ASG is spending during the 2017-2018 academic year cannot be sustained.
ASG began the year by pulling $30,000 from the SCRF reserves since, during the last biennial process, money was not allocated to this budget. Due to several expensive travel bills right before winter break, including one to send the Mesa Emerging Designers to Ireland, ASG also spent through the transportation budget and must currently pull from reserves.
Though ASG has seemingly hefty reserves for each of these budgets, if this spending trend continues into future years, senators will have no reserves to fall back upon.
At some point, someone has to begin to say no, or at least make more substantial cuts to bills that pass through ASG. While most bills seem like a small portion of money compared to the thousands the budget totals, these thousands add up.
ASG will likely have plenty of money to see them through the 2018 semester. The concerns being raised by Nguyen, Vela and now by The Criterion are not concerns for this year, but rather for future years.
It’s important to give students as many opportunities as we can, but not at the cost of students who will attend CMU five years down the road.
The decisions that ASG will face during the rest of the semester regarding how much they will allocate are important mainly because of the precedent they will set for future senate bodies. It’s likely that future senators will look back at the spending trends of the years before to guide their actions.
One expensive year might not matter in the short term, but it may affect future years in ways current senators have not yet considered.
Certainly, budgets vary and ASG’s is designed to be slightly flexible year-by-year, but with an almost entirely new executive branch and many new senators next year, ASG might not have veteran senators to remind them how important fiscal responsibility truly is.
CMU will continue to grow. More clubs will form, and they will find more conferences to attend and think of more events to hold. If ASG cannot stay under budget now, how will they do so in future years?
If ASG is both an opportunity for real-world experience in government as well as a learning experience, one of the best lessons senators can first learn, and then teach to others, is the importance of long-term thinking, especially in terms of finance.
