Student Assembly Finance Commission
September 27, 2010
5:00 p.m. — 6:00 p.m.
163 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

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

II. Roll Call

Commissioners

Shah Ahmad, Calvin Baldwin, Edward Barton, Lee Blum, Anna Connors, Phillip Crawfird, Emlyn Diakow, Charlie Feng, Jacob Frank, Matthew Gruber, Dan Gusz, Kristen Jenkins, George Kang, Catherine Kim, Chan Young Kim, Sang Kim, Rahul Kishore, Lawrence Kogos, Daniel Krenitsyn, Stephanie Lau, Chris Lee, Brandon Levitan, Jason Marder, Justin Min, Joseph Nocciolino, Vivien Pillet, Lauren Rosenblum, Diana Simpson, Kevin Song, Holden Steinhauer, Andrew Verri, Mack Wallace, Samantha Weiner, David Wong, Phoebe Yu and Jessica Zhao

III. Business of the Day

Help session sign-ups/ Potential policy changes

D. Gusz asked the commissioners to sign up for at least one of the two appeals help sessions this week.

L. Rosenblum added that they would take place in B12 Day Hall, and reminded everyone to wear their polos.

D. Gusz informed the commissioners that the caps ended up being $6,500 for co-organizations, $6,000 for regular clubs, and $5,750 for club sports.

L. Rosenblum said that the Student Assembly is creating a committee that would review the SAFC funding process. She, along with D. Gusz and C. Feng, will be part of the committee, and they need one more SAFC commissioner. She asked that those interested in the leadership position contact herself or D. Gusz.

D. Gusz said that the purpose of this meeting is to open the forum for any potential policy changes regarding the help sessions, the actual hearings, and the training and preparation for commissioners.

H. Steinhauer said that groups did not seem to be taking advantage of help sessions. He questioned whether they even knew they were available.

C. Feng brought up the idea of pre-hearings and re-branding.

D. Gusz said that the electronic budget help sessions seemed to attract more groups to come in. Perhaps in subsequent semesters the commission will hold more electronic budget help sessions and less regular help sessions.

E. Diakow supported the idea of having more electronic budget help sessions. However, she did not support the idea of a pre-hearing; she recalled having to do a budget for one group that came in during the help session, and she did not think that was the point of it.

J. Frank said that we could have used more commissioners at the electronic budget hearing.

L. Rosenblum suggested having groups sign up for electronic budget help sessions to be guaranteed a computer.

D. Simpson thought that the budget help sessions should not be on the same day as the deadline for the budget application. She said that groups came in on the last day with issues that could not be fixed, and the office was closed.

D. Gusz agreed that the scheduling was off due to glitches on the server. He asked if anyone had suggestions for hearings.

H. Steinhauer said that the guidelines should be more specific about a durable good, and found that it was a judgment call for some of the commissioners. Groups had come in requesting to purchase a good that was bought in the past, but it had been a number of years since. What is the minimum number of years that the same item can be requested as a durable good?

R. Shapiro said it was unclear how to handle bank statements and alternate sources of funding.

B. Levitan thought it would be more efficient if a budget application explicitly states whether a group is new or not. During no-hearings, commissioners had to search the database to check the status of each group.

A. Connors said she was unsure about shipping costs. She also supported the idea of re-branding a durable good.

H. Steinhauer proposed compiling a “common problems” cheat sheet for club organizations.

J. Min said that there needs to be a sound policy for the inventory report form. He also thought it might be useful to address the registration fees for national chapters. He added that it might be useful to make a more standardized comment section on the budgets.

D. Gusz asked if anyone had any suggestions for training. Did the new commissioners feel unprepared for the hearings?

H. Steinhauer suggested having mock budget hearings for new commissioners.

J. Frank also thought that the most recent guideline changes should be bolded. He said he sometimes felt confused about policies from previous semesters.

After a few wrap-up comments, the discussion ended and the co-chairs reminded the commissioners to wear their polos to the help sessions.

IV. Meeting was adjourned at 5:30 pm.

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