SAC Exec allocates student group funds

The Student Activities Council has allocated a total of $389,947 in Fiscal Year 2000 budgeting to the 144 student groups for which it provides funding. By contrast, SAC allocated $420,043 to student groups last year. SAC officials attribute this year's drop in allocations to the fact that many performing arts groups are unable to book their performance venues for next year due to the lack of performing arts space currently available on campus. SAC has placed an additional $30,000 in its contingency fund this year in anticipation of funding requests for performance space. This year, allocation requests from student groups totalled $853,000 and SAC initially recommended -- before any appeals were made -- that $371,003 be allocated. "Considering the amount of requests and the amount of money we have to allocate to those requests, not every group can be happy [with their allocation]," SAC Chairperson and Wharton sophomore Jared Susco said. "Considering the constraints placed upon us, the SAC executive board arrived at very complete decisions." SAC received $446,000 in funding from the Undergraduate Assembly's budget this year. After depositing 20 percent of its budget into a contingency fund and paying a $90,000 administrative fee to the University, SAC was left with only $267,649 of its original budget to fund student groups, forcing the group to dip into its reserve fund to meet allocation requests. SAC ended up using $122,298 from its reserve fund -- which hovered around the $300,000 mark prior to allocations -- to supplement this year's allocations. The SAC reserve fund receives all unused money from the five other branches of student government -- the Undergraduate Assembly, the class boards, the Social Planning and Events Committee, the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education and the Nominations and Elections Committee -- at the end of each fiscal year. "The money is there [in the reserve fund]," Susco said. "It's there for the benefit of student groups and it should be used as such." Twenty-four groups had appealed their SAC allocations by Monday, the last day groups could appeal prior to Wednesday night's general meeting. The SAC executive board granted 12 of those appeals, totaling an additional $9,357 in funding, bringing the total of SAC allocations to $380,360 by the start of Wednesday's meeting. And at Wednesday's meeting -- which, at 2 1/2 hours in length, was the longest meeting of the semester -- an additional 13 groups appealed to the SAC general body. The body granted 11 of those appeals, totaling an additional $9,587 in allocations. Only Penn Dance received the full amount of funding it had requested in its appeal.

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