In a unanimous vote, the Student Activities Council finalized its 2010-2011 budget in a General Body Meeting Wednesday night.
Having been allocated $884, 541 by the Undergraduate Assembly this year — almost eight percent more than last year — SAC distributed funds to its more than 160 student groups, according to SAC President Ali Huberlie, a College junior.
SAC granted the Medical Emergency Response Team one of the greatest funding increases — making MERT’s allocation $6,881 larger than last year. This jump, Huberlie wrote in an e-mail, arose “because [MERT] has been asked by the University to provide many more services … so they need a lot of new equipment.”
The increases in funding MERT has received will allow the group to both “increase [its] capacity and [its] ability to serve,” according to MERT Chief Sourav Bose, a College junior. “We were honored and grateful,” he said.
However, several groups were unsatisfied with their original budget allocations and elected to go through SAC’s two-step appeals process.
The Pakistan Society, for example, appealed for $700, which the SAC Executive Board denied last Thursday in its internal appeals meeting. The Society then re-appealed to the SAC General Body, which denied the request Wednesday night.
The Penn Art Club also appealed twice for additional funds to help pay for speakers they wish to bring to campus, according to College sophomore Tim Lew, the club’s treasurer. Both appeals were denied.
Though Lew said he “wished we had gotten the money,” he thought SAC made “a fair decision in the end.”
Citing the fact that only nine groups made appeals this year — as opposed to the typical 15 or 16 — Huberlie agreed the allocations process went smoothly.
“We would love to fund 100 percent of every single group’s costs,” she said, “but given the amount of money we’re given that’s impossible, [so] we try to be as fair as possible between groups.”
