May 13, 2009 • 8:28 pm 0
8:26: College Democrats receive $2,500 increase for their speaker honorarium. Earlier, AATE and ASA received $1,730 and $500 respectively. Pendse and Srinivasan explain that if everybody moves to put the remaining $29,582 to the supplemental funding pool, we can all go home. Senate embraces the idea and funding closes. Total time for the round is 2.5 hours. Faster than last year, which was faster than the year before. Senate is accelerating.
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009
• 8:20 pm 0
Sorry for not posting this earlier.
At 8:15: the funding is $34, 327, having started with 50,130, marking a decrease of $15,803.
At 8:16: funding is $33,827.
RANDOM QUESTIONS:
7:27: When did lighting and sound start getting called “sound and sight”?
7:56: Why exactly can SAFC members decline to answer questions?
8:15: The subtraction of $784 trips up Matt Belassai, who’s keeping track of funding on a big white board. Why don’t we do this with an excel spreadsheet on a projector using a caclulator…0r something?
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009
• 8:15 pm 0
8:15: Alex Russel, director of Sex Week (subsidiary of the College Feminists) asks for $1,600 to make up for inapproapriate tiers in funding for their speaker honorarium. SAFC member says, “We’ve worked with them” and doesn’t object. Neither does senate. They then get $784 for various undetermined costs involved in bringing their speaker to campus.
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009
• 8:10 pm 0
8:09: $1,500 added to the fall event honorarium with no opposition, even from SAFC.
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009
• 8:07 pm 0
8:04: A&O asks for $6,500 more for the honorarium for the “Blowout” tier of their concerts. The speaker says that this, combined with the increases the SAFC already gave them, will give them a 14 percent increase in their honorarium over last year, the percentage as last year. SAFC member Mike Hsu says, “Given the limited pool of funding, and A&O’s already generous recommendation, it is irresponsible to give them this request…If A&O is given funding increases of this size year on year, they will comprise the entire SAF budget by 2017.” He declines to answer questions.
An A&O member asks what percentage of attendance of the SAFC’s funded events go to A&O shows. A&O also points out they give a large percent of their funded money back to the SAFB through their ticket prices. Srinivasan brings some data potentially disputing this, but it is incomplete, so we can’t tell. The funding fails by 15-17.
8:05: The funding is immediately reintroduced at $5,000. After the previous 15 minutes of intense debate, the senate passes the funding by a large margin, 20-something to nine.
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009
• 7:34 pm 0
7:24: The FMO coordinator requests an extra $550 for its magazine, Blackboard. They get it with no opposition.
7:29: FMO makes a request for $700 for the spring event’s sight and sound because of a misunderstanding between him and his account executive. Apparently he had to offer different levels of funding for stage lights and speakers for the SAFc to choose between, didn’t do so and got nothing as a result. They worked out their differences and Jeff Cao, of SAFC, endorses the addition. Speaker Samir Pendse chides him from using a con speech to express support for something.
7:35: $2000 for the FMO spring event’s honorarium. They argue that with an increase, that they bring more people to their event than they did this year, when they brought Solange Knowles (Of Beyonce Knowles fame) to campus. Financial Director Malavika Srinivasan says that taking prospies out of their audience, their attendance this year decreased, and to their central claim: “I think that that’s an argument that any group can make, with more money you can do more.” Fails by a voice vote.
7:50: They now ask for $1,100 dollars. FD Srinivasan responds quickly, “You had fewer people, that does not deserve an increase in funding.” Former FMO director says the numbers for last year are flawed, says the event contributed to increasing the enrollment of minority students, then says “Keep in mind there’s a very small African American population at Northwestern, we won’t be able to sell out a room with this low amount of funding”. Then there’s a huge argument about head count and an SAFC member accuses them of falsifying numbers. Former FMO coordinator, Mark Crain notes that one year FMO got taken down 50 percent and it’s never climbed back, “We deserve a chance to get back where we were in the past.” SAFC member Jeff Cao gets up and says, “We do not fund on cause.” The mood could be described as heated.
Finally, the vote comes. Voice vote yields a solid Nay. A headcount confirms this.
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009
• 7:16 pm 0
7:15: SAFC guidelines state that they can’t cover food. NCDC gives candy to kids as part of project pumpkin. Candy is food. So every year, NCDC asks for money and SAFC has to say no. Of course, senate votes them the money (this year: $1,200). The inevitability of the process leads to dueling speeches between the president of the NCDC and their account executive accusing each other of wanting to turn kids into sex fiends.
A member of NCDC gets up and says, “I guess the SAFC hates children. I’m going to tell you all the reasons the world will end if you don’t give us candy…If kids don’t get their candy what are they going to do after school? Drugs, sex? They’ve got to do something with their mouths.”
An SAFC account executive gets up and says, ” Chocolate is an aphrodisiac. Why are we giving an aphrodisiac to children? Do we really want them whipping out their tootsie rolls, experiencing almond joy…having their star burst and leading to more Baby Ruths?”
He later concludes with, “We hate candy. Do you, or are you a Communist?”
The candy funding passes nearly unanimously.
7:17: An extra $400 dollars for project pumkin transportation also passes.
7:19: They get $250 for fall undergraduate lecture series.
7:24: Now they’re asking for $300 for printing Arts Fest programs. Jillian Lopez, asks why they don’t get help from the university. SAFC notes that no other group is getting funding for programs. The representative from NCDC says the kids that come to Arts Fest need to understand the work more than other groups’ attendees. Solid voice vote rejects this request.
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009
• 6:54 pm 0
6:45 PM: Welcome to the live blog of the cut/add round of SAFC from Senate. Slow start to the festivities today…
AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENT ALLIANCE:
The African American Theater Ensemble started by cutting $176 from their own funding from their main stage show, in order to garner ASG good will for putting on other, smaller events. This made one more cut than in all of last year’s proceedings.
RAINBOW ALLIANCE:
Heading to the first add round, Patrick Dawson requests an extra $145 for their fall speaker, a 5 percent increase, which the receive without dissent from the senate, following a pro forma objection from an SAFC member.
COLLEGE DEMOCRATS:
Then at about 20 minutes in, the college democrats requested $9,000 for their fall speakers. This has prompted a prolonged back and forth between the SAFC and the College Democrats about whether or not the the Dems should continue to have reduced funding as a result of their financial misconduct two years ago. The vote fails by a decisive voice vote. Mark Crain calls for a count anyways. The verdict on the $9,000 officially fails by a 7-28 against. The Dems now ask for $5,000.
6:49 The $5,o00 fails too, this time by 17-19 margin.
6:50: A $2,500 passes unanimously, a tone of resignation barely hiding within the the massive “AYE”.
ONE STEP BEFORE:
6:54: One Step Before, a group for minority pre-meds, gets $250 for its speaker. Their president notes that when they get more money, they get more attendance, like when they hosted the producer of Grey’s anatomy.
ALTERNATIVE STUDENT BREAKS:
7:00: Alternative Student Breaks gets an additional $1,100 for their spring trips. This is much less than in years past, when ASB had to get all of its SAFC funding by appealing it’s recommendation of “0″ that they would receive from the university. Their account executive replies only by saying that their request is “too high”. The funding passes unanimously.
-Michael Gsovski
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009
May 7, 2009 • 1:42 am 0
The Student Activities Finance Board released its funding recommendations for the upcoming school year at Associated Student Government Senate this evening. The overall recommendations totalled $896,482.00, an increase of $3,729 from last year’s recommendation of $892,753. ASG Financial Director Malavika Srinivasan attributed the low increase to the decision of “powers significantly higher” than herself in the administration not to increase the student activities fee.
The two groups with the most funding, A&O and Mayfest, recieved a cut and an increase to their funding recommendations from last year, respectively, although Srinivasan, a SESP junior, said these changes did not affect programming of either of these groups. She said A&O’s cut came from its own efficiencies in reducing the cost of its film series and Mayfest’s increase comes as a result of rearranging the funding cycle so that more of the honorarium would be paid now and additional security funding be paid during the “supplemental” round of funding later this year.
Filed under: Funding, SAFC liveblog 2009 , A&O, mayfest, SAFB
April 22, 2009 • 8:04 pm 0
Read the full story from April 22 in The Daily Northwestern. Excerpts:
The Associated Student Government Rules Committee postponed a vote to decide an impeachment hearing for ASG Academic Director-elect Muhammad Safdari in a closed-door meeting Tuesday.
The committee has 30 days to vote on the impeachment, said Grace Adamson, ASG parliamentarian-elect. The committee plans to make a decision by next week’s ASG Senate meeting, the SESP junior said.
“We felt that a prudent decision was better for the organization than a hasty one,” she said.
– Kirsten Salyer
Filed under: Academic Director, Daily articles , asg, safdari
