Source of SCC funding still unclear

It's been over a year since the controversy began over funding for club sports teams, and tensions are rising in the debate.

The Sports Club Council -- the organization for students who play a club sport -- is funded mainly by the Student Activities Council, the branch of student government that allocates money from the Undergraduate Assembly's budget to various Penn student organizations.

But SAC would like to find alternate sources of funding for the SCC to help free up money for its other dependents. The SCC, one of 187 recognized student groups funded by SAC, currently consumes nearly one-third of SAC's $341,000 budget.

"The SCC is a major part of our operating budget," SAC Chairwoman and Wharton senior LaToya Baldwin said. "Too much of our budget goes to the SCC."

SAC has officially proposed that the funding should come from the Department of Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics, which oversees the SCC. SAC representatives claim that the department, as an athletic organization, has a much better sense of the needs of the sports clubs.

But neither the recreation department nor the SCC want any part of that plan.

"SAC needs to understand that we are about students first," SCC President and College senior Whit Matthews said. "We are a student group. We want to remain a part of SAC."

Last year, representatives from the SCC, SAC, the UA and the recreation department met with Provost Robert Barchi to discuss the possibility of shifting the funding of the SCC to other sources. However, no final decision was made, and talks were extended into this academic year.

Now, with another semester on the horizon, there is no end in sight to the funding dilemma, and frustration is mounting on all sides.

"Every year, sports clubs had rightfully complained to the SAC executive board that they were underfunded and it was time that the SCC and the University realized that it was their duty to partially fund the SCC," former UA Chairman and Class of 2001 alumnus Michael Bassik said.

Last February, under Bassik's term, the UA issued its only statement on the subject to date, saying that if the recreation department were to assume funding of the SCC, it would be a much smaller dent in the organization's multi-million dollar budget. The same allocation that SAC currently sets aside for the SCC would constitute only 1.4 percent of that department's $7.4 million budget.

The UA has yet to review the issue this semester in their executive committee or general body meetings. But UA Chairwoman and College senior Dana Hork said the UA is still operating under last year's proposal. Hork has represented SAC in negotiations with the Provost, advocating that the recreation department assume funding responsibilities for the SCC.

Meetings on this subject continue, but to date there has not been a discussion in which all of the parties involved were present.

"Students are going to need to sit down and rehash this," Department Director of Recreation Michael Diorka said. "This is part of the larger picture about the question of student group funding. All student organizations need to address this issue."

One alternative being considered is drawing funding from the recreation fee that will be instituted with the opening of the new Pottruck Health and Fitness Center. The fee will be implemented to help cover the operating budget of the new gym, scheduled to be completed in 2003.

According to Hork, some parties involved are advocating raising the fee by a few dollars to help ease the burden on SAC.

But the idea of using the recreation fee to cover the sports clubs seems "kind of ludicrous" to Diorka.

"This is not what that kind of fee was intended for," he said. "There are operating and maintenance fees to run the new building, but that fee is to take care of that building, not to take care of sports clubs."

Matthews said that the actual source of the funding is of no concern to the SCC, but all things considered, they would rather remain members of SAC.

"Sports clubs in general can't be pushed off from one department to another," he said. "We want the University to say the sports clubs are important and not push us off from one group to another and say, 'you guys deal with them.'"

Matthews said the number of students clamoring to be a part of the SCC continues to grow, and they need a budget of at least $150,000 to sustain all 30 teams. The SCC received $95,000 from SAC in 1999, but last year their funding plummeted to $65,000. This year, club sports teams received about $85,000 in total. The remainder of the necessary budget is made up through membership dues to the various club teams.

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