This debate is between Emery Schofield, a third-year economics major who, “served during my past two sessions in the treasury branch,” Lance Williams, a second-year majoring in agricultural science who has, “proudly served the student body in the past two years, first as a member of the first year student delegation and Senate” and Jon Carter, a second-year accounting major who says, “I believe that the student body deserves someone with the financial knowledge and experience to be responsible for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are allocated to student organizations each year.”
The first question is, “Student organizations often struggle with securing sufficient funding to operate effectively. How do you plan to improve the appropriations process or provide resources to organizations that allow them to become more financially independent?”
Williams answered first, saying, “This absolutely has to be the number one issue that we are seeing from student organizations when they’re coming to the Treasury, looking for money.”
He continued, saying, “This is obviously very important, because Student Organizations need this money to be able to run. A big issue I think we are seeing is that we simply are not able to give them enough money as it stands currently. Unfortunately, during this past appropriations process, the top organizations were getting probably around under $600, whereas they’re able to ask up to $2,000 so there clearly is a deficit right now.
He says the top priority of the Treasurer is to clear up communication and get more money to student organizations. “If you are the president or treasurer of a club, getting a 20-page document to learn how to get money to your organization can be very daunting. And so while we do need to give them an ample amount of information, simplifying the communications process is gonna be huge, because a lot of the time these treasures, it’s their first time ever sitting in that position for their club, and they have no idea how to work their way through this process,” he added.
“In short, let’s get more money for our student organizations through the Treasury branch and make sure we are equitably sharing those funds to our student organizations.”
Carter then answered, saying, “In no way are the appropriation of the finance committee grants meant to be, you know, a significant funding source for our organizations.” He acknowledges that they are but says, “I want to see a treasury that is helping our student organizations become financially responsible, and I want us to be able to give them the resources that they need to raise the money that they need to support their events.”
He says he’s always skeptical of fee increases and “would like to see more grassroots efforts to encourage our student organizations to raise the money that they need.”
He says oftentimes student organizations have said “they’re unsure what is expected of them in the budget,” adding that because of this he wants to provide organizations with an example budget to reference.
Schofield answered next saying, “There’s so many student organizations, and there’s only a certain amount of money that we can get. So although we may move to increase funds or maybe move to a different plan. I think the best thing that we can do as a treasury branch is sort of offer ourselves as a resource to these organizations.”
He advocated for increasing financial literacy among the student organizations, saying, “These resources would allow for these organizations to generate their own funds, to invest in themselves.”
He says he worries that the burden of a fee increase would be felt, “And so I would move to try to increase the financial well being of these organizations from the ground up.”
