Reservations hold back SA funds

The Student Association mandatory fee increase was advertised to students as, among other things, a way for clubs to get more money to build battle-bots, travel to tournaments and help the community. With the $10 increase's passage this fall, many clubs hoped for significant budget increases for this semester and beyond. It seems clubs might not see the windfall they hoped for right away, since Anthony Burgio presented a plan to spread the extra money from the increase across the next three-to-four years, a plan that could lead to clubs losing this money altogether.

Burgio's plan divides the extra $300,000 they say comes from the $10 fee increase between SA clubs with 35 percent, SA Entertainment getting 45 percent, and the SA office getting 20 percent. This was the proposition on the table when the mandatory fee vote came to pass, but one caveat has worked its way into the plan. Burgio and Co. want to pro-rate the extra club money over the next three to four years, supposedly creating an eventual $500,000 reserve future SA administrations will be able to draw on should they exhaust their working budget.

While creating such a reserve is an admirable idea, trusting future administrations to not exhaust that reserve, and thereby spending clubs' money, is an iffy proposition.

Burgio said a creating a reserve for SA is essential to the financial existence of SA. On one hand, this he's right - Dela Yador said in last year's e-board spent nearly all of its reserves, leaving this year's administration with little left over from last year. Where Burgio runs into trouble is when he says this club money should go to supplementing that reserve. If last year's e-board is any indication, it is highly likely the reserve could be wasted by future administrations, leaving clubs without the money they were promised. Were the Burgio administration to last longer than one year it could be conceived this reserve could be built with a modicum of trust in the e-board, but trusting in future e-boards, especially three of four years down the line, when no one from this administration will be at UB, is fallacy.

Burgio's treatment of the club money also shows distrust in clubs themselves - Burgio has said he is reluctant to give clubs all of the money as part of their regular budget because he "has seen clubs not fundraise"