USAC seeks to improve budget process

Popular campus events like Dance Marathon and various culture nights rely on pools of funds that come from student fees.

These funds, which are managed by the Undergraduate Students Association Council, are distributed through a standardized allocation process.

“If a student organization can effectively portray they have a handle on their event that abides by all the standards we’ve already set … then they should be allowed funding,” said Bernice Shaw, who sits on the budget review committee as an Associated Students UCLA undergraduate representative. “We want to be able to support them.”

Some say that the process can be improved, however, while other members of the budget review committee believe the process is fair and allows for objectivity even if they are affiliated loosely with an organization.

“The process right now doesn’t reward the groups with the best applications … it rewards the groups that know the system best and will over-inflate their numbers in order to receive the amount of funding that they want,” said Tak Nguyen, a USAC general representative.

Some of the concerns that have been expressed by councilmembers include a perceived bias of those who attend hearings and a trend in which groups ask for more funding than they need.

The process by which funding is obtained breaks down into a series of steps.

Student groups who seek funds start by filling out and presenting an application to the budget review committee, composed of three to seven students who are USAC councilmembers or who are appointed by USAC.

The committee then evaluates a group’s application based on completeness, as well as on the program’s widespread appeal to the undergraduate audience, effective planning of the event and whether the group has sought alternate sources of funding.

The committee’s goal is to fund educational and service-oriented events for the undergraduate population, while using a scoring method that keeps groups accountable for the funding they receive, Shaw said.

When groups are evaluated after the hearing, each member of the committee gives the group a score, and the group’s average score is taken and placed in a formula to determine their funding.

Often, the number of people present at any hearing is dependent on whether or not a student is available at that time, said Jason Tengco, a USAC general representative.

As an unofficial rule, committee members should abstain from scoring applications if they have an executive board position in the group presenting to the committee, said Chris Grays, budget review director.

Nguyen said there have been some students at hearings who have scored applications more favorably for groups they used to be involved with or otherwise have an affiliation with.

Members of the council generally agree that they would abstain from participating in a hearing if they belong to the board of an organization. However, they disagree whether knowing the presenter or more loosely belonging to a student group affects their ability to score objectively.

D’Juan Farmer, Financial Supports commissioner, said a councilmember’s decision to score an application or not is more of an integrity question.

Tengco said he has sat in on hearings for groups he is only a member of, and said the guidelines by which groups receive their scores is fairly rigid and straightforward, and does not leave a lot of room for a councilmembers to take advantage of the system.

To help eliminate bias, when there are major discrepancies in the scores a particular group has received, it is generally discussed among everyone at the hearing until a consensus is reached, Grays said.

In addition to questions raised about a potential committee member bias, there have also been questions raised about groups asking for more money than they need.

During fall quarter, a student group requested almost $30,000 from the Board of Directors fund ““ more than any other group ““ and received the lowest score of all the hearings. The group received a final allocation of over $5,000, more than any other group that applied that quarter with better scores.

The fall quarter incident triggered a response from the council, calling for a revision to the formula that allocates funds.

But after reviewing the formula, the committee found that the current review process could not be improved upon, Farmer said.

Grays said the equation alleviates any arbitrary funding allocations by mathematically determining the final allocations.

Farmer said changing the system or adding a cap to funding requests would hurt student groups that put on large-scale events, and added that these are the groups that usually request the most money.

There is no way to know if a group has inflated their funding request, said Cinthia Flores, USAC president. She said it is the budget review committee’s responsibility to evaluate groups based on their application and their hearing performance. USAC rightfully does not play a direct hand in this, she said.

Farmer acknowledged that groups inflate their allocation requests, which is sometimes evident in the hearing and application, when the student group must justify and document all expenses in their program. If something can’t be funded or justified, it is removed by line item.

“We do look for inflation and we do look for strong justifications to these things,” Farmer said.

Tengco said while a group that asks for $50,000 might still receive $20,000, they have the greater burden of fund raising the additional $30,000 on their own and as a result there is a benefit to putting on programs with smaller budgets. Brian Tan, finance committee chair, also said groups that ask for smaller amounts and have thorough applications are more likely to receive a greater percentage of what they asked for.

The problem some USAC councilmembers see is that the review process takes place too quickly.

When three or four committee members spend five to 10 minutes with a group, they don’t have time to accurately gauge a program’s effectiveness, Nguyen said.

Addison Huddy, a USAC general representative, said he has been trying to implement a senate that would be comprised of elected, rather than appointed, students who are in charge of the budget review process. This would increase transparency and accountability in the process, he said.

Currently, USAC councilmembers who are not present at a budget hearing don’t have the opportunity to break down a group’s request, and all the allocations are approved during USAC meetings at the same time, he said.

He also said that while the senate system slows down the approval process for funding, and senate meetings are often twice as long as USAC meetings, he said the process would allow for more careful consideration of each application.

Joanne Lin, Campus Events commissioner, also said that having applications approved all at once is not a problem because it’s a more efficient system that allows things to get done faster.