GPSA Funding Policy Committee

Meeting Minutes 11/13/08

Meeting called to order at 5:31pm. Greetings/Introductions

1. Introductions: all present
2. Matthew Hurst volunteered to take minutes.
3. FPC’s work and mission
   1. Graduate student activity fee $70 / year, about 6600 graduate students. Budget is roughly 440,000 dollars/year and majority goes to byline funded groups: Cornell Cinema, Slope Day, concerts etc.

I. Byline funded organizations: generally large university wide groups.

1. M. Kennedy asked whether byline applications were solicited. J.

Kupferschmidt said that they likely were for established byline funded groups, but probably not for new ones.

1. about 2.60 [actual: $2.76] go to GPSA itself to run
2. GPSAFC: central idea is money dispersed to student groups
   1. Tasks for the year
   2. Make recommendation to GPSA for a budget process, then review and put in writing.
   3. Review structure of how money is allocated to different groups and consider and improve

GPSAFC bylaws.

1. Make byline funding process more coordinated with undergrad side

II. Open Forum: Need for coordination with undergraduates was emphasized.

It was asked what the time-line for byline funding process is. Applications are solicited some time in the spring. Will inquire before the next meeting.

III.GPSA Budget

Goal: Make two or three proposals for a budget and then submit those to the assembly. GPSA will be able to change the budget line by line. Committee Budgets

• Events: Grad Ball and Grads Night Out, active event chair
  • Grad Ball: rough costs of 15000 including 11000 in catering (Cornell Catering), 1000 for DJ, some money for room, and 6000 gotten by ticket sales, dean of students 500, EGSA gave money.
• Advocacy: Brings together people interested advocating on behalf on graduate students, e.g., currently actively involved in advocating for Geneva students regarding health care.
• Finance: correction for $605 for food, small scale events for organizations, and then allocate to individual organizations [correction: $455 for food was correct. the $150 food for the big funding day should be understood as an activity, not as food for a committee meeting.]

A General proposal for committees to find an arrangement where committee members pay for every second meal themselves. Seemed to bear the downside of administrative burden and incentivizing to meet an odd number of times.

• Funding Policy: Food budget suggested to be set to $225 for due to the prospect of three or more late and long meetings
• Communications: idea is that GPSA should be more visible to our constituents
• Give-away: contact producer to make 99 cent recycled grocery to have GPSA logo on it, useful and can promote GPSA, exclude from downsized budget option.
• Make poster and flyers that serve the same function: not just advertise communication, overall existence and events, source of figures for postering was not know. $1210 appeared a large sum.
• Line item by line item: Postering: do all postering once, cutting to 605, cheap option would be to give no giveaway, could also just print posters and try to distribute them
• It was suggested that instead of a large scale giveaway an effort should be made more effort to increase communication between department groups and GPSA. E.g., accountability: for FC funding can make stipulation that if you fund grad student association must have representative. Generally, it was said that the GPSA Communications committee is actively trying to fill open committee spots, and these actions could be considered to complement each other.

• Issues with budget:
  • There may be several contentious issues that we cannot resolve at this point, but we can aim to make the choices clear
  • Last year, the buget ran over about 300 dollars for first two operating expenses: Council and Assembly meetings
  • Don’t understand what petty cash was for, more accountability in the future
  • Ivy Summit Savings are very vague. Neither scale of expense nor sources of funding for next year’s Ivy Summit, which will be hosted by Cornell, are known at this point. This gives some leeway in restructuing the budget.
  • Slope day allocation was in previous years a gift from the GPSA to the Slope Day board. Now it is byline funded freeing up funds. The issue of whether the GPSA should fund Slope Day has been contentious in the past. E. Gutierrez reported that at the SA’s meeting a survey was presented showing relatively strong interest/attendance of Grad students at slope day.
  • In the past, allocations were not necessarily tracked well.
• Parts of the special funds expenditure are already spent and thus fixed.

  • Retreat, Ivy Summit Attendance, Visit to Geneva

• Proposals / Recommendations:
  • Keep grad ball budget same. Suggested not to cut funding based on offsetting lost revenue by suggesting to increase ticket price. Motion seconded. General consensus is should not cut from grad ball in order to fund other things. For a more detailed recommendation, more information would be needed.
  • Awards ceremony good event because gave sense of community reduce from 500 to 250

IV Charter Review Committee

The committee will look at the GPSA’s charter. Representation of this committee will be vital to establish a decent budget process. M. Hammidian volunteered to serve on the committee.

V Next Meeting will be Dec 11 at 5:30, location TBD.

At the next meeting, the committee will look at the GPSAFC bylaws. J. Kupferschmidt will send out pdf with comments highlighting potential points of improvement. Please read and write down own comments/ideas for next meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 7:05pm.