The Student Association is preparing to reclaim up to $40,000 from more than 30 student organizations at the end of this week.
The annual reclamation affects student organizations that failed to respond to the SA Senate Finance Committee’s request to examine the organization’s finances as part of the SA’s mid-year review.
The selected organizations could lose between 40 and 100 percent of their initial allocation funding.
Organizations that failed to respond and did not spend any of their allotted funds could risk losing all of their money, Finance Committee vice chair Travis Holler, ESIA-U, said.
Student organizations are funded through the SA by the student fee, a per-credit charge every student pays with his or her tuition. The reclaimed money will go back into the SA’s co-sponsorship fund.
Among the organizations facing losses are Colonials for Life, GW Bhangra, J Street Hooligans and Wooden Teeth, according to a list provided by Holler.
Organizations were notified last Wednesday night, and have until Friday night to appeal to the committee. As of Monday, Holler said fewer than five organizations had signed up to meet with the committee.
Finance Committee chair Chris Clark, U-At Large, said the committee was not aware it was required to reclaim money until recently.
“Several executives in [the Student Activities Center] and the SA came up to us and pointed out the rule to us, otherwise we did not know of it,” Clark said.
Holler said the committee has not reclaimed money in recent years because past review processes were not as extensive as this year’s review.
“This is the first time in almost 5 years that the finance committee has followed every single bylaw,” Holler said. “This is just a continuation of the committee checking in on organizations to make sure they are using their money properly.”
He added the mid-year review process is important because it recycles money back to student organizations that put on programming, rather than having the unspent funds roll over to the next year where current students might not benefit from them.
Clark, a candidate for SA president, said the process was fair, as the organizations had 10 days to respond to the committee.
“We all did this fairly,” Clark said. “They would not have gotten fined if they had followed the rules and submitted that Google doc that we had sent to them numerous times. I don’t really have a problem with that.”
The entire SA Senate will have the final vote on any reclamation bill.
