SAC seizes funds from debtors

After weeks of crunching numbers and hearing appeals, the Student Activities Council yesterday finally removed $17,381 from student group accounts this week in accordance with its recently enforced debt policy. Sixty-three student groups lost an average of $275 each under the policy, with individual levies ranging from $2 for the Artists Guild to $1,621 for Alternate Spring Break. SAC bylaws prescribe that each group in debt will lose a percentage of their annual grant or the amount of their debt -- whichever is less -- in order to begin payments. Although the Student Activities Manual calls for a 50 percent loss in funding, the penalty this year was set at only 30 percent. "We didn't want to do anything too drastic the first year," said SAC Executive Board Chairperson and Wharton senior Steve Schorr. He added that over the next three years, penalties will increase incrementally to 50 percent of group debt, 100 percent of group debt and a complete loss of funding for groups with chronic debt problems. According to the SAC guidelines, the money taken from the accounts will be used to pay off the groups' outstanding debts, which range from less than $10 to more than $10,000. Two weeks ago, preliminary numbers indicated that as much as $19,787 might have been assessed. "It's never easy when a debt policy first gets enforced," said Schorr, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist. "For the first time, there will be disincentive for groups going into further debt." But Undergraduate Assembly Treasurer Bill Conway, a member of the SAC Executive Board, said he was not so sure the rules would be enforced as written. "We had to go around [the policy] this year," the College sophomore said. "I don't think we'd be precluded from doing it again." SAC revised some of the figures it initially released at its January 29 meeting. Mask and Wig will lose only $1,282, instead of the $1,598 SAC initially estimated. The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Alliance will lose $320 less than the previously stated $1,532. And the Glee Club will see a reduction of $750, not $898. The only other groups losing more than $500 from their accounts are Alternate Spring Break, WQHS Radio, Punch Bowl and the Reach-A-Peer Helpline. While Schorr admitted that "some groups may be inconvenienced," Conway said the punishments were justified. "Part of the impairment will come as a result of what they gained as a result of their misspending," he said. "If you take advantage of the system, you're going to pay for your crimes." The money taken from the student group accounts was deposited into the SAC Reserve Fund, the account from which SAC lends money to its member groups. The fund currently has "at least a couple hundred thousand dollars" in it, according to Schorr. Schorr indicated that SAC officials hoped to invest the money in the reserve fund to provide the group with a continual funding stream. A decision may be made this month.