Student Assembly Finance Commission
March 8, 2010
5:00 p.m. — 6:00 p.m.
B12 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

The Meeting was called to order at 5:00 p.m.

II. Roll Call

Commissioners

Emlyn Diakow, Charlie Feng, Benjamin Finkle, Jacob Frank, Dan Gusz, Kristen Jenkins, George Kang, Charles Kim, Rahul Kishore, Lawrence Kogos, Chris Lee, Jason Marder, Justin Min, Yuliya Neverova, Joseph Nocciolino, Vivien Pillet, Scott Rog, Robin Shapiro, Kevin Song, Mack Wallace, David Wong, Phoebe Yu, and Jessica Zhao

III. Business of the Day

Limiting Travel/ Consumer electronics/ Publication Standards

C. Feng went over the background over the issues being discussed today. He asked if anyone wanted to bring up any big picture ideas.

M. Wallace asked about what was being done for special projects.

D. Gusz said that a clause would be added to special projects, so that it would apply not only to groups who had something new that they wanted to fund, but also groups that did not get funding. If groups were zero funded for a local event, they could apply for special projects, at least get some money to subsidize the cost.

B. Schreff said that he had a problem with partial allocations in this clause. If a group wants to run an event that costs $4000, and just gets $500 from special projects, the event in unlikely to happen. Then the commission has allocated $500 that does not go anywhere, meaning money is taken away from other groups, the caps are lower, and more wasted effort on behalf of the commission.

D. Gusz agreed with what B. Schreff’s comment, but still felt that the clause would be helpful for groups to receive a partial subsidy who were willing to pay the left over costs. He said that it this meeting the commission will be mainly talking about limiting travel, consumer electronics, and standardizing publications, so then next week these can be formalized into a document. As for limiting travel, he wanted to see if there was any type of system that could fairly put a limit on how much groups can travel, whether it was a percentage, dollar amount, or just as little of an arbitrary number as possible.

J. Frank asked if we should consider certain types of travel.

D. Gusz asked if he meant in terms of international travel, or regionalizing it.

J. Frank said that his biggest complaint was with funding for retreats. He found that groups used retreats mainly for recreational purposes.

D. Gusz said that sometimes you will find ten different groups going to a retreat.

J. Min said that it really depends on how the term retreat is used. Sometimes a group may call a conference a retreat.

E. Diakow said that practice for a club sport might be deemed as a “retreat” for other groups, which may have learning or training aspects.

J. Frank said that even so, the term retreat is easy to get around. He questioned some of the types of events that a group may request travel funding for.

R. Kishore felt that maybe if it would be okay if it was sponsored by a larger organization.

V. Pillet added that the purpose of the SAFC should be to add value to an organization, which might be fulfilled by being able to attend a retreat.

B. Schreff contradicted this statement, with questioning whether the commission’s purpose is to add value to the Cornell community.

C. Feng asked everyone to form groups according to which topic they felt most strongly about, and for fifteen minutes or so formulate some sort of ideas or writing that could possibly be made into a resolution later on.

B. Schreff asked the e-board to go over the issues that the commission had with consumer electronics.

C. Feng said that he thought consumer electronics were under the broader section of durable goods. He said that one of the major issues he had with durable goods, is how do we make sure people are not taking the goods they buy from the SAFC? He proposed making some sort of independent body that checks ten random groups every semester, and checks if durable goods that they purchased in previous semesters are actually being stored in the location where the group documents they are. This would be done in hopes of creating a sense of accountability for the groups. He said a second issue the SAFC had is how do we ensure that groups are not buying luxury goods, whose purposes could be fulfilled with a less expensive item?

B. Schreff, L. Kogos, and J. Zhao were assigned to represent the ideas for limiting travel, durable goods and publication standardization, respectively.

B. Schreff said that one idea his group came up with, is that for groups that are traveling long distances, or traveling overseas should provide price quotes for the plane ticket in addition to the mileage, so we do not over allocate. A second idea, is that that there should be a per car allocation instead of per person, meaning that you would take the number of people traveling and dividing it by four to determine the number of cars to fund gas mileage. There is no added burden of having more people in a car, but paying per person is more expensive which really does not make much sense. He said that another idea that was discussed, was coming up with applying under a separate travel heading, which would have its own caps and could be allocated independently.

V. Pillet also suggested categorizing groups whose budget was mostly consisted of travel to be automatically placed under the travel segment of allocations.

The commission went into a discussion of the IRS negotiated rates for travel. E. Diakow stated that the rate was too high if the allocations were on a per person basis, but may be too low if five people were group together per car.

D. Gusz asked if anyone had any suggestions for qualifications that would label an organization as a “travel group”, such as a certain percentage of budget or a cap amount.

E. Diakow suggested that a group should surpass a certain amount of money before being labeled a travel group, since variations in the budgets could skew the percentages.

J. Zhao suggested making a distinction in the purpose of the travel, for example whether it is for the group to compete, versus to attend a retreat. She felt that a larger percentage of travel funding should be given to the competing end, given that these groups are representing Cornell, in contrast to groups that are attending an off-campus event that is not necessary to the purpose of the group and is not contributing to the Cornell community.

L. Kogos thought that it would sound pretty arbitrary in making that distinction. The ability to travel to events does give value to groups.

J. Min suggested giving groups the option to voluntarily categorize themselves as a travel group, with the benefit that they will have more free range on how much they are funded, while those groups who opt out will only be able to receive a flat cap.

V. Pillet asked what would happen to groups who have only a big travel event that comes up only once in a while. These groups would be at a disadvantage not being under the travel group category.

The commission wrapped up their discussion about limiting funding for travel, and considered ideas such as seeing how groups register for the SAO, and if such a system of distinguishing groups based on travel was even possible. D. Gusz said that he would look at the numbers and maximum travel funding requests per group, and bring those up next week to put this problem more into perspective.

L. Kogos said that one idea was to have an organization’s advisors check their inventories periodically, although it may be difficult for advisors who have multiple groups or are not willing to check inventory.

J. Min asked how this would be written in the application. Would the commission just recommend that the advisor check the inventory?

L. Kogos answered that a signature will be required from the advisor to check the location of the inventory. He said that another thing his group discussed, was that the SAFC should have data about the inventory that the club has when making decisions about funding, so that what the commission actually funds for corresponds with what items the groups purchase. In terms of luxury items, his group considered breakdowns of specific electronic goods, and if a group wants to go over a cap for an item they have to apply with a separate form. For example, if a group wants a $1000 camera, they have to explain why they need it, as opposed to a $400 camera. He also suggested that if a group wanted to go over a cap for a specific electronic good, the e-board could go over the request and use their discretion.

E. Diakow said that she was nervous about the potential subjectivity of allowing the e-board to use their judgment on funding electronic items, but thought what might also be useful is to require that groups give a rationale and show cheaper and more expensive options of the item they want.

J. Min said that he does not like how the commission is singling out electronics specifically, and thought that the discussed policies and caps should be applied to durable goods, which can be just as or more expensive.

D. Gusz thought that we are targeting electronics because we have found that groups seem to request these items that are not necessarily specific for the organization.

J. Zhao suggested that if a good is over a given amount of money, the group can only purchase that same item after a certain time period. That way groups will be more accountable if an item is taken, stolen or damaged.

S. Rog stressed the importance of making sure an expensive requested good should be necessary for the groups purpose.

R. Shapiro thought that the commission should have records of what is being allocated. As for the random checks on itinerary, he asked if there should be a punishment for groups that were breaking the rules.

J. Min thought that the system could be unfair, in that if a president of an organization is graduating and decides to take an allocated item, that group could is disqualified from applying for funding for that taken item. While he thought that groups should be accountable for their goods, he did not think that entire group should be punished for one member’s actions, which could even cause the extinction of the group.

E. Diakow warned the dangers of limiting groups too much on what items they can apply for, especially if a group is actually using all the items purchased which are necessary for its purpose.

J. Zhao said that the main concern of publications, was that groups were using these funds superfluously. Her group suggested that if a group just wanted to start a publication for the first semester, they would have a limit of $500 for each issue, for a maximum of three issues. This limit would be placed for the first 2 semesters. She also thought that the commission should be stricter on where the groups are distributing the issues and how many copies for each location, so that groups are made aware that their publication is for the entire community. She added that for the first semester, when groups apply for funding for the first time, they should bring some sort of outline or prototype of the publication, stating what the purpose is, who will be writing it, and who is going to benefit.

E. Diakow thought that this would be hard to do for budgets that are due so early in the semester. She said that some publication groups are not sure exactly what will be covered in their issues, or which of their writers will be featured.

J. Zhao said that it did not have to be a full layout or design, but she thought there should at least be a stated purpose of starting a publication, and a general idea of what will be featured.

D. Gusz did not think that the commission needed to mandate spots where the publication was distributed. If a publication costs too much per copy, there would not be enough issues to be distributed for the benefit for the Cornell community.

C. Feng said that next week there will be a longer meeting to formulate changes, and draft them to Ari who will make these into resolutions so they can hopefully get passed. He said that there will be food, and asked if there were any suggestions or questions.

IV. Meeting was adjourned at 5:45 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,
Valerie Pocus
SAFC Clerk, Office of the Assemblies