Unlike last year's Michigan Student Assembly financial problems, coined the "BPC non-crisis," this year's Budget Priorities Committee recently wrapped up its allocation process with much praise.
"They've responsibly allocated the money," said Roger Fisher, assistant director for campus activities and programs, who serves as the University liaison to MSA. "The two chairs were just outstanding, both as administrators and representatives. I can truly say if it wasn't for BPC, a lot of things wouldn't get funded on campus."
BPC is responsible for dividing MSA funds among student groups on campus. BPC Chair Karie Morgan, who was re-elected to a second MSA term two weeks ago, said one of her priorities this year was making sure BPC did not run out of MSA dollars before the year was through.
The funds requested by student groups ranged from as high as $16,550 to as low as $52. The amount of money groups received also varied. The Hearing Impaired Students Organization got the most funds, at $1,260, while eight campus organizations received no funding.
In the previous year's assembly budget, BPC appeared not to have enough money to cover the requests for the last set of student groups.
"Basically, we spent more first semester than we should have," said Matt Curin, last year's BPC chair.
Former BPC Vice Chair John Lopez said several changes to the committee's operation were made this year, including splitting the year's money equally over both semesters.
"We basically made sure the money was given out evenly during the course of both terms," Lopez said.
Lopez said BPC cannot fund certain things, like capital goods, food or resources used exclusively for the groups' benefit.
Morgan said BPC committee members don't follow a rigid set of criteria to make their funding decisions.
"For the most part, it's a pretty case-by-case basis," Morgan said. "Throughout the year, we try to be consistent."
Morgan said BPC members try to allocate similar amounts of money to similar types of events or projects among groups.
"Generally, we look at how the event is going to impact campus," Morgan said.
Morgan also said the committee doesn't just look at the significance of how many people attend the event but rather how the campus community will benefit.
Students In Stockwell Transmitting Ethnic Relations, who applied for a $500 allocation for their traditional annual fashion show, was one of the few campus organizations that BPC recommended for zero funding. BPC's recommendation was later overturned by the assembly, which voted to allocated $180 to SISTER. This was one of the rare cases where the assembly overruled a BPC recommendation this semester.
SISTER President Keshia West said that in the future, she would like to see increased communication between student groups and BPC members. She also said she wants a clearer explanation of how the committee decides its criteria for funding groups.
"That's the one thing I want to know - are we at their mercy?" West said.
Beginning this fall, BPC will have more money to work with due to fee increases voted on by students during the past two assembly elections.
"I think that we'll be very close to meeting their demands because we're going to be returning a lot of internal money, as well, that student groups have never seen," MSA President Mike Nagrant said.