A $2 Million Night
Right now, as we speak, 94 college students are pulling an all-nighter to decide how $2 million is going to be spent. And no, it’s not going to go to the world’s largest pot farm. Instead, my alma mater’s Student Government is going to do a lot of work:
SB2008-1053 Allocation of $100,000 Loan Income to Recreational Sports
SB2008-1054 2008-2009 SG Funded Organizations Budget $584,598.00
SB2008-1055 2008-2009 SG Funded Academics Budget $539, 602.00
SB2008-1061 Allocation of Reserves to SG Administration for Bike Repair Facility $80,000.00
SB2008-1062 Transfer Reserves to SG Operations for Bandshell Renovation $675,000.00
Granted, 1054 and 1055 are the annual budgets for all student organizations on campus, so these aren’t exactly special or truly “newsworthy” (unless you bother to read the details therein). But look at that – they are spending $80,000 for a bike repair facility that, if memory serves, was rarely used during my days at UF. And they are spending $675,000 on a Bandshell that should be UF Administration’s responsibility.
Lots of student money being spent – I’d love to know just how many non-SG types showed up to pay attention. Not every day that much money changes hands on the 3rd Floor.
Repairing the bandshell has been a staple on the indie platform for years, the admin is also paying for about half of the bandshell’s cost I believe. Also, the bike repair shop is well used now a days and actually something that will help out the student body.
I also know that SG voted on a bandshell repair bill when I was there eight years ago. Can’t recall if it made it through, but likely did as most money bills do. So it’s something to be concerned about if the bandshell needs million-dollar repairs every 5 years or so.
As for the bike repair shop, that’d be great. I think I recall it being in the regular SG budget during my day and rarely if ever used. So if it fell out of the budget, or this money was spent to expand a service that is in growing need, then fine.
But in $13 million, there’s bound to be some seriously wasteful spending and it’s always good to keep a skeptical eye on things – especially items the University could pay for or might not be widely used. The budget (and the reserve account) is the biggest part of SG’s responsibility, but it’s rarely treated that way, either in the campaigns or once Senate is in session.
The bandshell is being paid for with 675k from reserves and 430k from the Capital Improvement Trust Fund. Essentially it’s all student money.
We were told that the bandshell renovations would be good for at least 50 years, we’ll see how well that turns out.
The $80k for the bike repair shop is being used to build them a real structure, rather than the little shack they have now. Its a fairly dinky little thing right now.
The student organizations budget wasn’t anything really surprising, except that SG has decided that they were going to be fairly strict on doling out money, especially to BOCC (which they gave a 0% increase).
Well, hopefully the bandshell renovations truly do last 50 years – I’d hate to come across an Alligator in 8 years talking about more renovations being needed.
As for the bike repair shop, hopefully that money will go to some good use, especially in the bike repair is more popular now than I recall during my time. If I were on the budget committee, though, I’d ask why this money hadn’t been thought of earlier in the school year when the SG annual budget was being approved.
As for BOCC, I too was surprised by that. We had a $360,000 budget in 2002, and I would have guessed things would have moved faster than that (especially given how fast the A&S fee budget has grown during that same time). But a number of college councils under-utilized their funds, or go inactive from time to time, so I’m not entirely surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.
In fact, in the Voice Party campaign of fall 2001, we campaigned on a budget amendment to ensure student organizations got 5% more than the Budget Committee promised – a modest $10,000 increase. Of course FBK said no, but then came back in the Spring and did exactly what we asked and amended the budget.
So SG likes to be stingy to folks who aren’t under their complete control, but will be generous when it suits their purpose.