SAC cracks down on debt with fines for student groups

Alternate Spring Break will lose $1,621.94. Mask and Wig will see $1,597.80 vanish from its accounts. And the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance will have $1,532.40 less in its budget than it did a week ago. Those three student groups top the list of more than 60 organizations funded by the Student Activities Council that lost part of their 1997-98 budgets in accordance with SAC's newly enforced debt policy. According to SAC Executive Board member Bill Conway, a College junior, SAC announced its policy a few years ago when it wiped out all student group debt. This is the first year the group is enforcing the policy. "They don't realize they're actually going to lose the money now," said SAC Chairperson Steve Schorr, a Wharton senior. "Something's got to be done to get rid of [the debt]." According to the Student Activities Manual, a student group in debt is supposed to lose 50 percent of its SAC grant or 50 percent of the value of its debt -- whichever is less -- with the levy going to debt reduction. But SAC chose to lessen the severity of its policy by only assessing 30 percent of the grant or debt in the first year the policy will be enforced. While Schorr, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist, said organizations with outstanding debts were treated "a little more moderately" this year, he noted the penalty will increase to 50 percent next year. Even with the lenient policy, several groups will lose a significant amount of funding this year. Five SAC groups -- Alternative Spring Break, Mask and Wig, the LGBA, the Choral Society and Choir and the WQHS-AM student-run radio station -- are each slated to lose more than $1,000 in funding. Seven more groups -- including the Glee Club, American Marketing Association and Poor Richard's Record -- are losing more than $500 each from their budget. However, student groups did not react as negatively to the enforced policy as SAC had expected. College senior Heath Mackley, station manager for WQHS, was ambivalent about the penalty. "I think it will affect the operation of my station," he said. "If you take away our funding it hampers us in our ability to earn our money back." Mackley did concede, however, that with the money going towards the station's debt, he was "not really pissed off about it." Gordon Gochenauer, treasurer for Alternative Spring Break -- the group facing the largest single levy -- sees the greater good in the plan. "I think this policy is pretty lenient," the College senior said. "The SAC Exec Board is doing it for the good of SAC." Gochenauer added that with more participants this year, enough money may be raised to completely pay off his organization's debt. However, for many organizations -- particularly some performing arts groups -- the situation is more complicated. Groups such as Chord on Blues and Counterparts have high debts but receive no grants from SAC that can be assessed. Instead, they receive loans that, according to Schorr, "don't always get paid back." "The a cappella groups will have to be dealt with in a separate way," Schorr said. "[We have to] make sure revenue goes to paying down debt." Some student groups used the occasion of the enforcement of SAC's debt policy to make their own cases for additional funding. "It's a farce that clubs are getting turned down when there are clubs that are in debt thousands of dollars," said College senior Stuart Smalheiser, a member of the Sports Club Council. "Clubs in good standing are getting hurt by clubs that abuse the system." SAC ultimately voted to allocate the $548 requested by Smalheiser and the Sports Club Council against the recommendation of the Executive Board.