The Student Activities Council seems to have the amazing ability to perform a feat most other student groups only dream about — making large sums of money appear out of thin air.
SAC's reserve fund contains $357,492, advisers announced at the committee's executive board meeting last Friday — almost twice the amount they thought they had, according to College sophomore and Undergraduate Assembly treasurer Bill Conway, who was at the meeting.
In light of the extra money, several student leaders said they find it interesting that some SAC leaders tried to pass a referendum during the recent UA elections to recover SAC money allocated to the IFC.
The referendum, proposed last month by SAC Chairperson Sang Cha and other students affiliated with SAC, attempts to recover the $30,000 which the UA removed from SAC's budget to fund Interfraternity Council-sponsored events that are non-alcoholic and open to the entire campus. Students voted on the referendum yesterday and Tuesday. Results will be announced tonight.
"I find it ironic that SAC found out about the extra money after the [UA] budget meeting," College junior and IFC President Josh Belinfante said. "It just goes to show that SAC is unwilling to give money to any group they can't control."
However, Lynn Moller — the financial administrator for student activities — said SAC is not trying to "hide" the money, noting that she and a professional accountant are the only people who keep track of the reserve-fund total. She explained that since money in the reserve fund comes from the money left over from the budgets of five different University accounts — SAC, the UA, the Social Planning and Events Committee, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and the Graduate Inter-School Activities Council — it's difficult to know the exact amount at any given time.
Noting that the reserve fund "seems to get bigger every year" Moller said she "would have estimated" it was at most between $250,000 and $300,000. The latest figure was "very surprising."
However, Cha, a Wharton junior, defended the referendum he co-sponsored. He said SAC does not have the "luxury" to take money out of the reserve fund because the body recently voted to invest it.
"It's always good to be cautious," Cha said. "If you start a trend of dipping into the reserve fund, it will continue. And once the money is gone, it is not likely to reappear."
Conway, who automatically gets a seat on the SAC executive board, said although SAC will invest some of the reserve fund, it will keep anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in a contingency fund for unexpected requests.
Despite Cha's claim that SAC will invest the entire reserve fund, he said that money is only a small part of the committee's impetus for the referendum. "The UA set a bad precedent by bypassing the other branches of student government in allocating money to the IFC," Cha said.
But Conway said if the referendum was indeed about precedent, and not money, SAC should not have complained about its constituent groups' loss of funding.
And Moller said SAC has recently been "very conservative" in its allocations. "Every year when SAC is going through their annual budget, I tell them how much they have to spend," Moller said. "But it often just sits there and doesn't get spent."
Conway also said there could be anti-Greek sentiment in SAC's nine-member executive board, pointing out that he and College sophomore Jason Ackerman are the only two members affiliated with the Greek community. The undergraduate population is about 30 percent Greek.
"I don't think [SAC] argued against the $30,000 because they really need it or because student groups will be affected," Conway said. "They are just upset because the UA gave money to the IFC."
Cha denied any sort of 'vendetta" against the IFC. But he said that "history has shown that IFC-sponsored events are a flop."
