UA approves $1.1 million budget

Every student government group, except for SCUE, will receive increased funding. The Undergraduate Assembly last night passed a $1.1 million student government budget for the 2000-2001 academic year, a 3.9 percent increase over last year's UA funding, and also approved two funding requests for upcoming student events. Items in the budget include funding for Spring Fling, increased finances for the Social Planning and Events Committee To Represent Undergraduate Minorities and a subsidy to give student groups dolphin server accounts free of charge. The budget -- which includes all money given to the UA, the Nominations and Elections Committee, the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, the Social Planning and Events Committee, the Student Activities Council and the four class boards -- is generally increased each year in proportion to the increase in University tuition. But the UA plans to request more funding from the University to give additional funding to SAC for advertising and other expenses. The 27 voting UA members in attendance at last night's meeting voted unanimously to approve the budget of $1,105,906. Five members of the body were absent. Every student government group will receive increased funding next year except for SCUE, which requested less money this year than last year. Additionally, the Senior Class Board will not receive a $15,000 grant to subsidize the senior formal that it had in previous years and the UA itself will cut its operating costs. UA leaders said they decided to remove the $15,000 subsidy for the senior formal because the event lasts only three hours and is open only to seniors. UA Treasurer Michael Bassik said the resulting $9 increase in ticket price "shouldn't hurt the event that much, in terms of sales" and noted that the UA will provide $500 for a trip to Manayunk, offer a larger loan to pay for senior formal expenses and reduce by $1,000 the senior class's own contribution to its budget to make up for the lost $15,000 in funding. Some of the money saved from the removal of the subsidy will go to SPEC-TRUM, which will receive new funding with $6,250 to fund a comedy show -- it sponsored a Def Comedy Jam show last December with help from the UA -- $2,250 for a Kwanzaa celebration and $1,000 for a CASA Carribean party, as well as additional funding for its annual Penn Relays concert. Included in the UA's operations budget for next year is $6,500 to subsidize student group accounts on the University's dolphin server, which will for the first time cost each group $17 per year to maintain. The $6,500 includes enough funding to pay for the continuation of all current dolphin e-mail accounts and the creation of about 20 new accounts next year. Bassik said SAC had been concerned that student groups would join SAC just to have their dolphin fees paid next year, so the UA "decided we would pre-empt it" by paying for the dolphin accounts itself. UA leaders said last night that they are lobbying University administrators to provide more than the minimum 3.9 percent budget increase this year in order to give additional funding to SAC. Bassik noted after the meeting that costs for student government groups have risen during the past year due to increased facilities-use costs, the increased costs of Daily Pennsylvanian advertisements and SAC's recent decision to provide funding to a cappella groups. Also at last night's meeting, the members present voted unanimously to provide $2,000 in funding for an April 5 concert featuring an Israeli rock star and $256 to the United Minorities Council for an affirmative action rally later this semester. At the end of its meeting, the UA debated a proposed change to its attendance policy which would require that UA members be automatically removed from their seats after missing more than 25 percent of UA meetings in any given semester, regardless of their reason for being absent. Though the body initially appeared to pass the change to its bylaws, which would not take effect until after this year's UA elections, a voting discrepancy discovered after the meeting ended led UA leaders to nullify the vote. The body will vote on the measure again next week.

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