A University of Memphis committee charged with dispensing student-paid fees violated the First Amendment earlier this year and is now being accused of favoritism.
It wasn't long after the Student Activity Fee Allocation Committee announced the amount of funding allotted to 16 campus groups - a decision approved and made final by U of M President Shirley Raines - that questions arose of whether the funds were properly dispensed.
One suspicion emerged when the Student Government Association, which has representatives on the committee, received an increase in funding compared to last spring's allocations while most other groups were decreased.
"On the face of it, it certainly seems like a conflict of interest," said Moira Logan, associate dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts. Representing the dance department, Logan requested $25,000 this year, and received $10,000 - the same amount the group received last year.
"[The funding process] has certainly generated a great deal of controversy," Logan said. "I expect that there will be more transparency in the future."
Candy Justice, general manager of The Daily Helmsman, takes an issue with SGA representatives serving on the committee. The independent student newspaper has historically received $75,000 for its printing costs, but was allocated $50,000 this spring. After an investigation found the committee violated the First Amendment when it discussed the paper's content, Raines ordered that $25,000 be restored to the paper.
Recordings of interviews with committee members during the University's investigation show that the SGA members on the committee - former SGA President Tyler DeWitt and former Vice President Rachel Goodwin - expressed their disapproval of what the paper was and was not printing and how it operates. The SGA proposed to publish its own newsletter, but the committee did not fund that project.
"There is something seriously wrong with a system whereby two of the seven voting members of the funding committee are voting on their own funding when no other student organization gets to have representation on the committee," Justice said. "A system like that invites corruption and pursuit of self-interest by the SGA at the expense of other student groups."
Hype about SGA
Slightly more than 61 percent of this year's increased request to the committee came from the SGA. The group received almost $59,000 more than it was allotted for its base budget last spring.
"If committee members are invested in their own projects, objectivity is unlikely," said Leslie Luebbers, director of the Art Museum at the U of M. The museum was allotted $20,000 this year, compared to the $30,000 it received last year - the largest percentage decrease handed down by the committee at 33 percent, tying with The Helmsman.
"In addition, this year the shortfall to some groups was compounded by an unprecedented - to my knowledge - reallocation of funds from some applicants to provide large increases to others [who] control votes," Luebbers said.
The SGA's presence on the committee isn't a new occurrence - it has been the case since the fee was created in 1984.
Current SGA President Russell Born, who is set to serve on the committee next year, said SGA representatives should have a place on the committee because they were "elected to be the voice of the student body."
"The idea that the SGA is trying to get more money to recklessly spend under our administration or that because we serve on the committee it becomes unfair is completely false and has no merit," Born said.
In the spring of 2011 the SGA received $175,000 that was spent on student travel, the SGA's election, tuition and stipends for SGA officers, a multi-cultural festival, scholarships, basketball homecoming and other expenses.
This year, the group asked for $191,000 more than last year for a total of about $366,000 in order to publish a student-event newsletter and bring a high-profile political speaker to campus. The group was denied some of the funds, but was given $58,866 more than last spring.
The extra funds, according to Born, are slated to be spent on the new student parking lot at home basketball and football games, a new electronic voting system for the senate, funding for the U of M's Model United Nations and partial-funding for a political speaker.
Born said he is happy with the committee's decision and wished the SGA could have gotten more money.
"I think those are all being spent on worthwhile causes. I wish the committee had given us more money for a speaker, especially when we are trying to get somebody like President [George W.] Bush," he said. "I want to make sure everything is going toward a noble cause and to better the University, and I do feel everything we've done has done that, regardless of a price tag for sure."
He said controversial items on the group's budget such as tuition for officers, polo-style shirts for senators and leather-bound notebooks are important to the group. The provided tuition allows officers to devote their full time to the SGA because they may not have time for a job, Born said, and the shirts and notepads allow the senators to be "visible on campus," and appear professional at events.
Born pointed out that it was 2011-12 SGA President DeWitt, now a graduate student in the Cecil C. Humphrey's School of Law, who budgeted the SGA for the 2012-13 year and submitted the proposal to the allocation committee.
DeWitt and Born both say they don't view the SGA as having received an increase in funding. Last fall the group got a supplemental allocation of $173,228 added on to their spring budget, so DeWitt said the group was actually reduced from what they were allocated last year in total. 2011 was the first time the group had ever received supplemental funds, which paid for a one-time political speakers event.
DeWitt declined to comment on several questions and former Vice President Goodwin said she needed 48 hours to respond, but never did so.
Committee Operations
Issues with the Student Activity Fee policy and procedures were noticed before any of this year's controversies came up, Vice President of Student Affairs Rosie Bingham said.
"The policy regarding the Student Activity [Fee] is one of several in Student Affairs that is so old we needed to review it," Bingham said. "Certainly the entire funding matter made the review just that much more timely. All things about the policy are under review including the composition of the committee and who is eligible to submit requests for the funds."
The policy was last updated in 1988, four years after its creation. It currently lists eligible programs as including but not limited to student publications, the SGA, spirit support groups, the Student Activities Council, "general programs to enhance students' social, cultural and educational experiences," and athletics, which now has its own fee and is no longer funded out of SAF funds
Seventeen groups requested a little over $1.9 million this year, but unlike the year before when there was a surplus of funds, not every group could be allotted the full amount. There was just under $1.6 million to hand out.
Eleven groups were cut a total of $202,170 compared to the amount they were allocated last spring. Three groups' funding was increased: the SGA, Frosh Camp by $75,000 and New Student Convocation by $885.
Committee Chair Stephen Petersen, dean of students and adviser to the SGA, said it is not accurate to call the reductions a "cut" at all.
"Each student group or department that submits a funding request submits a new request each year. Groups are allocated funds based on that year's particular request and the available funds, not based on what they received the previous year," he said in an email last week.
The majority of groups have consistently gotten a similar amount from year to year, though. The variation from that this year has some saying the funds should have been allocated differently.
"The fair response is to distribute funds as equitably as possible on the basis of merit and do the least harm to consistently high-performing programs," Luebbers said.
Laura Hoffman, representative of the Student Activity Council, Operational Assistance for registered student organizations and Student Event Allocation, which redistributes funds allotted to them to registered student organizations, said the committee had a tough job and worked to follow university policy "to the best of their ability."
She isn't upset with the committee over each of the groups she represents getting a decrease in funding, but said that less money is available to student organizations for operating expenses and larger programs because of the decrease.
"We evaluate our expenses and identify how to meet those needs with the money we are given," she said. "Since specific funding amounts are not guaranteed from year-to-year this is a pretty standard process."
It's proven problematic for the Honors Student Council, which puts on several events each year and uses money from Operational Assistance to advertise and buy supplies.
"It's inconvenient for RSOs -especially if they don't plan something until the end of the semester - because the funds are already gone," Co-President Grace Waters, senior biomedical engineer major, said.
Joining DeWitt and Goodwin on this year's allocation committee were Petersen, Director of Student Affairs Finance Colis Chambers, Director of Budgeting Deborah Becker, faculty member Susan Keys and Billy Lockhart, then graduate student appointed to the committee by President Raines.
The committee's increased allocation to Frosh Camp - the camp for incoming freshmen that takes place every summer and is put on by the Office of Student Leadership and Involvement but formerly sponsored by the SGA - allowed for a third camp to take place this past summer.
"The camp had sold out for three straight years, and it was an appropriate time to add a third camp," said Justin Lawhead, associate dean for leadership and involvement. "The increased funding supported adding that camp and allowing all students - who were interested - to attend."
Petersen said the committee valued Frosh Camp because the retention rate for the 2011 group of participants was 95 percent. While it varies yearly, Lawhead said it is consistently higher than the overall institutional rate each year.
Some committee members said they viewed Frosh Camp as a "fixed cost" to be allocated full funding because its expenses were set costs such as gas, food and lodging.
Lawhead, who is in charge of the camp, said that in actuality the funding is also spent on camp supplies, T-shirts, programs and a stipend for counselors and Executive Board members. They have some money left over most years, he said, which rolls over to fund the next year's camps. Other revenue for the camp comes from registration fees and advertising sales.
While the camp received the largest increase in funding, groups in the College of Communication and Fine Arts received the most cuts.
Some committee members have said they viewed the arts as an area that could be cut because the groups can receive departmental help. Luebbers said this is a problem.
"I believe that Dean Petersen is committed to giving students who are forced to pay these whopping fees significant power over their distribution, and I sympathize with this point of view," Luebbers said, "but the cultural programs that have traditionally been co-sponsored by Student Activity Fees are hurt by inconsistency and materially threatened by reductions in the allocations."
