SAC demands to see details of General Fee

Penn's student government may be calling in the feds. Hoping to end an ongoing battle between students and University officials over access to information about the General Fee, the Student Activities Council voted last night to give administrators two weeks to release the information before SAC turns to the federal government for help. For more than two years, the Undergraduate Assembly, the Graduate and Professional Student Association and SAC have been appealing to University administrators for access to line-by-line allocations of student General Fees revenue. The General Fee, paid as part of tuition by all University students, costs undergraduates $1,766 annually, and slightly less for graduate and professional students. The total yearly revenue of $26.5 million goes in part to finance student activities. SAC Chairperson Steve Schorr said the UA received $922,000 of this year's total General Fees revenue, which it then distributed to fund the Social Planning and Events Committee, Connaissance, class boards and SAC -- which gets an estimated $450,000 to fund all student groups under its umbrella. Schorr said he wants to know, "Where does the other $25.5 million go?" "I've spoken to pretty much every administrator and they've been unwilling to tell me," he told SAC members last night at the group's first meeting of the year. The Wharton senior said that over the last two years, he has tried to obtain the information from the University's budget director, the University treasurer, the vice president of finance, the provost and the offices of the vice provost of university life and the president. Last night SAC issued an ultimatum: if the administration does not give the group access to budget allocations by October 8, SAC will pay for a Freedom of Information Act request asking a federal agency to examine the University's budget. SAC voted to set aside $500 for the investigation. "I think that it's unfortunate that the administration is forcing students to go to the federal government and pay hundreds of dollars to get information," Schorr said. SAC anticipates having information on the budget to offer students by its next monthly meeting. "If anyone now or in the future wants to make a proposal for more funding, they know what their options are," Schorr said, adding that he does not know yet whether his own organization will request more money to allocate to student groups. Last night, SAC also took up appeals from two student organizations that lost their budgets in the spring because SAC said they duplicated other groups' activities or violated funding regulations. Last night, Circle K -- which SAC termed "too similar" to Kite and Key -- returned before the body to ask for renewed support. Circle K representatives appealed for only one-third of the amount they requested last year. They argued that the group does not resemble Kite and Key enough to be considered a "duplicate" of the group. "We help different organizations, we help different people, we help the community in different ways," said Circle K representative Usec Rho, a College sophomore. College sophomore Jason Ackerman, another Kite and Key representative, supported Circle K's claim. "Why not give the community more service?" he asked the body. Another non-funded group, the Free Burma Coalition, tried to appeal SAC for money to support its campaign to educate students about the political unrest in Burma and encourage them to take part in boycotting corporations that do business there. SAC had refused to grant the group money last year, saying that it does not fund any student organization designed to support or oppose a political party or influence legislation. "I don't see how they can call us political when we're not influencing any legislation," said the group's founder and chairperson, Peter Chowla, a Wharton and Engineering senior. But in a close vote, SAC voted to deny Free Burma Coalition the $276 it had requested.