The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate's newest plan for the allocation of surplus funds, most of which are leftover from the Student Activities Fee, proves to be another lacking, albeit honorable, attempt at fairly distributing this money.
The proposed grant program, which will allow student groups to apply for grants ranging from $10,000 to $100,000, is an improvement over previous years' methods of dealing with surpluses, but remains inadequate in terms of equitability and long−term thinking.
The Spring 2009 decision by the Senate to grant Tufts Mountain Club $230,000 worth of recovered funds to construct a Trips Cabin next to the original Loj in New Hampshire was highly contested by the student body. One of the concerns was that such a large sum of money was going toward benefiting a single student group. The fallout from the decision highlighted the lack of any standardized system for dealing with TCU surplus funds.
The Senate's newest distribution plan, however, raises questions about the justification of using surpluses from last year's Student Activities Fee, a fourth of which was paid by graduated members of the Class of 2010, to fund new campus projects. How reasonable is it to use students' money to pay for projects that they will not be on campus to enjoy?
The Senate reports having $450,000 in surplus funds and plans to allocate $200,000 of it to various student groups through this grant program. While the Senate's decision to fund projects that will benefit a significant portion of the student body is laudable, the Daily challenges that this new program potentially distributes funds in an inconsistent and unfair manner.
The Class of 2010 will not get to enjoy the fruits of this grant program despite funding it. Furthermore, since the current plan requires that projects awarded grants be implemented by September 2011, current seniors may still not see the end results.
Instead, one possible solution that would ensure greater consistency and continuity is the creation of a surplus endowment — the Senate's original plan that administrators rejected. This way, a system will always be in place to allocate the previous year's surplus to the current year's projects. In this system, current seniors would not have to worry about receiving the full benefits of their $288 Student Activities Fee; each subsequent year would benefit from the previous year's excess funding.
This system would also serve to eliminate wasteful and unnecessary spending. Rather than searching for ways to spend this $200,000, the Senate would have the money available when student groups actually needed it and had worthwhile projects to fund. While the net result might be the same, it is important that the Senate is not just looking for ways to spend this money just because the extra funding is available. Eagerness to spend the funds could possibly compromise our responsibility to ensure that students' money is well spent. We urge the administration to reconsider their rejection of the proposal to create a surplus endowment.
Another option is to reduce the annual Student Activities Fee or reimburse students at the end of the year with whatever is left over. With last year's Student Activities Fee of $278, students could have seen an approximate $45 return.
TCU Treasurer Kate de Klerk's budgeting plan touches on the need to make the fee more directly beneficial to the students paying it; it is a giant leap forward from last year's Trips Cabin decision. However, there is still a need for refinement and reconsideration of the best way to handle surpluses to ensure that students are getting enough bang for their buck. Under the proposed program, effectively half of those responsible for the surplus will not enjoy its benefits.
We encourage the Senate and treasury to go one step further and guarantee that every student will benefit and that no one will be paying for more than they get.
