[111] in UA Senate
Re: UA budgeting principles
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Liz A. Denys)
Thu Oct 15 01:00:33 2009
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:59:55 -0400
From: "Liz A. Denys" <lizdenys@MIT.EDU>
To: hwkns@mit.edu
CC: Janet Li <jli12@mit.edu>, Alexandra Jordan <amjordan@mit.edu>,
Jason Scott <jascott88@gmail.com>, Adam Bockelie <bockelie@mit.edu>,
Paul Youchak <youchakp@mit.edu>, Catherine Olsson <catherio@mit.edu>,
Andrew Lukmann <lukymann@mit.edu>, Alex Schwendner <alexrs@mit.edu>,
"Alex Dehnert (UA Treasurer)" <ua-treasurer@mit.edu>,
ua-senate@mit.edu, ua-discuss@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <9d4f87ed0910142159n415eb566kc0a58bbacff5427a@mail.gmail.com>
Not to mention that only $90K of the UA's ~$300K budget each year comes
from the Student Life Fee (see http://ua.mit.edu/exec/slf/). The other
~$210K comes from the General Institute Budget, making Hawkins's
estimate high. So, Hawkins's estimate is 3x as high as he intended.
Daniel Hawkins wrote:
> Oops, the $5,675 is for a semester. So make that an egregious $1.14 per
> year.
>
> -hwkns
>
> On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 12:54 AM, Daniel Hawkins <hwkns@mit.edu
> <mailto:hwkns@mit.edu>> wrote:
>
> I don't know about other committees, but I know the ones Alex
> mentioned (exec this semester, DPC last semester) put in some
> marathon sessions, as did senate. I know I locked myself in a room
> from 10am until 7pm on Saturday, working on position pieces, and the
> only thing I ate during that time was some snack food that was
> laying around the UA office. I've heard SCEP puts in some pretty
> long hours sometimes too. We do a lot of thankless work, and I
> don't think it's unreasonable to tax students to a small extent for
> that work. And I do mean a SMALL extent; if we go with Paul's
> figure of $5,675 for food, and look at where we get that money from
> (student life fee), and look at who is paying for it (all students),
> we discover that each student pays an egregious 57 cents per year so
> the UA can feed itself.
>
> -hwkns
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 12:45 AM, Janet Li <jli12@mit.edu
> <mailto:jli12@mit.edu>> wrote:
>
> I know I'm new, but I just think that committee meetings are
> generally short enough that no one should go too hungry during
> them... it does seem a little absurd to me that 14% of our
> budget goes to food to feed OURSELVES. Sure, the UA works hard
> and all, but we do it because we WANT to help the undergrads.
> And I just don't see how we're helping and serving them by using
> 14% of our enormous budget to pay for our own food. I would like
> to suggest that we remove food from all of the committees'
> budgets in the future... does anyone else agree at all?
> ---
> Janet Li
> Baker Senator
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 12:33 AM, Alexandra Jordan
> <amjordan@mit.edu <mailto:amjordan@mit.edu>> wrote:
>
> I agree with Hawkins. The UA is a large organization, that
> cumulatively puts in hundreds of hours for the undergrads
> per week, with some individuals putting in well over even a
> normal 40 hour work week during the more stressful periods
> (example: Exec officers and the Budget Task Force position
> pieces, example: DPC report compilation). Providing basics
> (like food, a productive meeting space, etc.) for people to
> perform work on behalf of 4,000 students is completely
> within reason. If you're looking to cut fat out of the
> budget, it shouldn't be at the expense of the quality of
> working conditions for the people who are representing
> undergraduates to the administration to make life better at
> MIT. I also would agree with Ashley's assessment that
> student groups probably should fund certain events or
> capital expenditures from other means, not only to ensure
> sustainability and longevity of the group, but also because
> many small student group expenses benefit even fewer people
> than the UA food expenditures we're discussing.
>
> I also think it's relevant to recognize that the work of the
> UA is on behalf of all undergrads, whereas many of the
> groups we fund benefit and represent extremely small
> segments of the population.
>
> Alex Jordan
>
> On Oct 15, 2009, at 12:17 AM, Daniel Hawkins wrote:
>
>> This argument neglects the differences in size between the
>> UA and the senior class council, the difference in budget
>> size, and the difference in man-hours of work. How often
>> does the senior class council meet? How long are the
>> meetings? Surely none of them are like the 9.5-hour
>> senate meeting we had at the end of last semester... I
>> think you're comparing very different things here.
>>
>> -hwkns
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 12:07 AM, Jason Scott
>> <jascott88@gmail.com <mailto:jascott88@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I don't generally respond to these threads, but I just
>> feel somewhat strongly against food at meetings.
>>
>> Not once in our four years has our council sponsored
>> food at our meetings. If having food at meetings is so
>> important for efficiency, can people not simply bring
>> their own food to the meeting?
>>
>> I'm a strong believer in having committee members
>> being rewarded for hardwork/planning. But I think that
>> 14% of a budget spent on the committee members
>> themselves, is somewhat excessive.
>>
>> How would people react if last year's senior class
>> council spent over $30K on food for only 8 people?
>>
>> -Jason
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 11:58 PM, Adam Bockelie
>> <bockelie@mit.edu <mailto:bockelie@mit.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> I would disagree. Being part of a
>> committee/senate/anything else in the UA is a lot
>> of work, and most people are already busy with
>> other activities. Having money to spend on food
>> for a meeting means that people can focus on
>> getting work done, not on searching for food
>> between meetings. People on committees are
>> dedicated, and I don't think that food is
>> generally an incentive. But, I do think that food
>> helps make meetings more productive.
>>
>> Janet Li wrote:
>>
>> I really like Catherine's idea of the
>> collection jar for food for Senate meetings. I
>> also agree with Paul that it doesn't seem all
>> that necessary to have so much of our budget
>> go towards providing food at committee
>> meetings. People on committees should be
>> dedicated enough to not need food as an
>> incentive to come to meetings, anyway.
>> ---
>> Janet Li
>> Baker Senator
>> MIT Class of 2012
>> Dept. of Biological Engineering
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 11:07 PM, Paul Youchak
>> <youchakp@mit.edu <mailto:youchakp@mit.edu>
>> <mailto:youchakp@mit.edu
>> <mailto:youchakp@mit.edu>>> wrote:
>>
>> A few comments:
>>
>> A quick calculation for this years budget
>> makes the cost spent on
>> food for meetings for various committees
>> (and poland spring water)
>> to be 5675 dollars which is 14% of our
>> budget. This seems to be a
>> pretty large sum and percentage. Saving
>> this money and giving it to
>> Finboard would be quite significant.
>>
>> I understand the logic in moving the Senate
>> elections to the fall so
>> that Freshmen could participate. This
>> being said, I think it would
>> be worth considering revising this and
>> moving the elections back to
>> the Spring. We could withhold a few open
>> Freshman seats to be run
>> with the class council (independent of
>> living group) allowing for
>> their inclusion in the fall as well. This
>> process should allow
>> Senators for the coming year to be involved
>> in the budgeting process
>> and any other events which might be taking
>> place. For instance this
>> would have allowed for the Senators to help
>> the Exec on the task
>> force report this year and get involved in
>> other projects as soon as
>> the school year begin. Returning senators
>> would also feel a greater
>> obligation to be involved instead of
>> waiting for the fall session to
>> start.
>>
>> I, being a new Senator this year, do feel
>> that I have relatively no
>> idea what is going on for these discussion
>> and because of it do not
>> feel it is my place to question the
>> judgment of those who know much
>> more about the topic than I.
>>
>> back to work,
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Catherine Olsson wrote:
>>
>> I strongly agree with Alex S's
>> sentiments that we should favor
>> putting money towards student groups
>> instead of our own
>> initiatives. I think at the very least,
>> as Andrew brought up, we
>> should hold ourselves to the same
>> standard as Finboard holds
>> student groups (which will be easier if
>> Finboard's standards
>> become more clearly stated and
>> publicized as recommended by the
>> FPRC). If we don't hold ourselves to
>> the same standards as the
>> groups we're withholding money from,
>> then it seems clear to me
>> that the money is not going to its best
>> use.*
>>
>> Thanks, Andrew, for the relevant
>> history. Would it make sense
>> for us to extend the period of the
>> summer budget through the
>> second meeting of the subsequent fall's
>> Senate session? It seems
>> like this would prevent money from
>> being spent before the fall
>> budget is approved, as happened with
>> Athletics Weekend and other
>> expenditures this cycle.
>>
>> I would also be in favor of putting a
>> collection jar out at
>> Senate, Exec, and committee meetings so
>> that we can pay for some
>> of our own food. I greatly appreciate
>> having food at Senate
>> meetings, as it means I don't need to
>> worry about finding dinner
>> on an evening which is already very
>> busy. However, paying a few
>> bucks for the food I eat so that we
>> aren't entirely taxing the
>> student body for meals most of them
>> don't eat (even though
>> they're welcome to) seems very
>> reasonable. Other students who
>> come to meetings would still be able to
>> eat the food and would
>> be encouraged to chip in, too. Does
>> anyone else agree?
>>
>> I'm very glad we're discussing this
>> issue. Given that next
>> term's budgeting is starting soon, I
>> think now is exactly the
>> right time to pull our thoughts together.
>>
>> - Catherine Olsson, Random Hall Senator
>> and Senate
>> Representative to Finboard
>>
>>
>> *It should be noted that much of the
>> funding denied to student
>> groups by Finboard is because the
>> groups' proposals seem not
>> well-planned-out or not worth the money
>> (such as t-shirts), not
>> _because_ Finboard doesn't have enough
>> money. But if Finboard
>> had more money, we could relax some of
>> our guidelines, enabling
>> us to fund more conferences, fund
>> capital such as costumes and
>> musical instruments more than our
>> current caps, fund more
>> travel, enable groups that maintain a
>> library (such as MITSFS
>> and Anime Club) to acquire more new
>> material, and allow groups
>> who wish to hold a vast number of
>> events to hold all their
>> events and not just some.
>>
>>
>> Andrew Lukmann wrote:
>>
>> If Alex's sentiments are shared by
>> a number of other new
>> senators... it might be time to
>> re-investigate the timing of
>> future budget approvals as well.
>>
>> History:
>> In the somewhat distant past (6-7+
>> years ago) Senate was
>> elected in the Spring with the
>> incoming UA P/VP. As a
>> result, the incoming Senate and the
>> incoming administration
>> worked together to compile and
>> approve a budget before the
>> Summer. However, with a number of
>> changes to the living
>> group constituencies, most
>> importantly Freshmen on Campus,
>> the decision was made to move
>> Senate elections to the Fall
>> to allow freshmen to vote (and run
>> in) the Senate contest.
>> From what I recall, the first year
>> of this change, the Fall
>> budget was actually voted upon by
>> the outgoing Senate,
>> allowing the administration to have
>> a complete and approved
>> budget to operate on over the
>> summer, during orientation and
>> during the Fall term. This,
>> however, served to largely
>> hamstring the newly-elected Senate
>> regarding financial
>> policy until at least the Spring
>> budget was discussed in
>> December. As a result, this was
>> altered (about 5 years ago)
>> to the current arrangement where
>> the outgoing Senate (in the
>> spring) grants an advance for the
>> administration to utilize
>> over the Summer/Orientation which
>> is disbursed by the
>> ExecComm in lieu of Senate. Then
>> the Fall budget is taken up
>> and approved by the new Senate when
>> it is finally assembled
>> and called to order by early-mid
>> October.
>>
>> Problems:
>> It seems that in an effort to
>> address problems of the past,
>> we in past UA administrations (and
>> past sessions of Senate)
>> have helped to create new problems.
>> It seems that even
>> though the intent of moving Fall
>> budget approval to the Fall
>> was to empower new Senators, this
>> has been less than
>> effective. New senators are just
>> beginning to find their way
>> and are reticent to question the
>> wisdom of a budget handed
>> to them by more experienced
>> officers like the President,
>> Treasurer and (often) Speaker.
>> Situations are also
>> encountered where the executive
>> assumes that certain
>> budgetary line items will be
>> approved and preemptively
>> spends the money (such as Athletics
>> Weekend), effectively
>> circumventing Senate's oversight
>> responsibility. Not having
>> an approved budget until mid
>> October also hampers the
>> ability of the Executive and it's
>> Committees to engage in
>> activities and programming early in
>> the term.
>>
>> If other people in the UA agree
>> that this is an important
>> enough issue, I encourage you to
>> re-investigate the
>> possibility of making changes in
>> the budget calendar and
>> taking a closer look at the pros
>> and cons of different
>> options. In the end, the balance
>> will almost always be
>> between empowering the current (or
>> most recently) elected
>> representatives and having an
>> experienced enough group of
>> Senators calling the shots that
>> they can serve as a
>> meaningful check against executive
>> overreaching or "mission
>> creep."
>>
>> Yours in the UA,
>> Andrew L.
>>
>>
>> Alex Schwendner wrote:
>>
>> I would like to advocate that
>> our budgeting goal should
>> be to allocate
>> more money to student groups.
>> Here's why:
>>
>> Our goal, as the Undergraduate
>> Association, is to make
>> things better
>> for undergraduates. When it
>> comes to money, this means
>> that we should
>> see that money gets spent on
>> the things which most
>> benefit MIT
>> undergraduates. This might mean
>> that we spend the money
>> ourselves or
>> this might mean that we give it
>> to student groups who
>> can use it.
>> There are plenty of student
>> groups who do wonderful and
>> amazing
>> things. All of us can think of
>> student groups which get
>> much of their
>> funding from the UA which have
>> made our time at MIT more
>> worthwhile.
>> Our goal, as the UA, should not
>> be to do awesome things,
>> but rather to
>> see that awesome things get done.
>>
>> Sometimes, of course, this will
>> mean that we should
>> spend money on
>> projects conceived by the UA
>> and sometimes this will
>> mean that we
>> should give money to student
>> groups. However, there is a
>> natural,
>> institutional bias toward
>> spending the money ourselves.
>> We need to
>> fight that bias. Since we, the
>> UA, get first crack at
>> the money, it's
>> easy to think of cool things
>> which we can do with the
>> money while
>> forgetting about the very real
>> and very cool things
>> which student
>> groups will *not* be able to do
>> without that money. We
>> can see this
>> "mission creep" in UA funding
>> in the way that the money
>> allocated to
>> UA committees has increased in
>> past years. Yes, the UA
>> does more with
>> the increased money, but it is
>> not always clear that
>> it's spent better
>> than it could be spent by
>> student groups. The standards
>> which hold for
>> receiving funding from the UA
>> general budget should be
>> analogous to
>> the standards which hold for
>> receiving funding from UA
>> Finboard. I
>> will note that while UA
>> committees received basically
>> everything that
>> they asked for in the Fall UA
>> budget, student groups
>> which applied to
>> UA Finboard received less than
>> 30% of their requests in
>> the most
>> recent funding cycle.
>>
>> Therefore, during the Spring
>> 2010 budgeting process, I
>> intend to push
>> for allocating more money for
>> student groups. Projects
>> which we choose
>> not to fund from the UA general
>> budget can seek funding
>> through UA
>> Finboard, from LEF or ARCADE,
>> from the MIT
>> Administration, or from
>> other funding sources.
>>
>> Please discuss.
>>
>> Alex Schwendner
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:52
>> AM, Alex Dehnert (UA
>> Treasurer)
>> <ua-treasurer@mit.edu
>> <mailto:ua-treasurer@mit.edu>
>> <mailto:ua-treasurer@mit.edu
>> <mailto:ua-treasurer@mit.edu>>> wrote:
>>
>> As several people have
>> pointed out, the UA
>> spends quite a bit of
>> money on
>> events (about a third
>> of last semester's budget)
>> and focused projects (like
>> PLUS --- about a tenth
>> of last semester's UA
>> budget). As Andrew Lukmann
>> pointed out last week,
>> committees are spending
>> almost twice as much in
>> Fall
>> 2009's budget as in
>> Spring 2007's budget.
>>
>> Unfortunately, it is
>> now a little bit late to
>> make major changes to the
>> Fall 2009 budget. Last
>> week's meeting was
>> intended to allow that,
>> and we
>> spent a great deal of
>> time on it then. I also
>> solicited feedback late
>> Friday
>> night (or really
>> Saturday morning), and didn't
>> receive any. Of course, you
>> are well within your
>> rights to amend the budget
>> at this point. (Though
>> Athletics Weekend has
>> already happened, so I'd
>> rather you didn't amend
>> that...)
>>
>> However, the Spring
>> 2010 budget has not begun
>> being compiled. In
>> preparing
>> the the Fall 2009
>> budget, I (and I believe
>> committee chairs and
>> the Special
>> Budgetary Committee)
>> generally followed
>> precedent as to events
>> and amounts.
>>
>> In some sense, there
>> are (at least) two options
>> for guiding principles to
>> take in producing the
>> budget:
>> (1) Many of the UA-run
>> events are more useful
>> than the events and
>> programming
>> (Finboard-funded) student groups
>> would spend the money on
>> (2) Alternatively, that
>> events and programs such
>> as Athletics Weekend or
>> PLUS aren't worth
>> taking the money away from
>> those student groups
>>
>> We've recently been
>> defaulting to the former
>> guiding principle.
>> However, I
>> would encourage the
>> Senate to seriously consider
>> which is preferable and
>> pass appropriate
>> legislation indicating a
>> preference.
>>
>> I would be *thrilled*
>> to have such guidance, and
>> would happily incorporate
>> it into next semester's
>> budget. (I warn you,
>> however, that committee
>> chairs
>> will probably be asked
>> to begin budgeting in
>> about two weeks.)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Alex Dehnert
>> UA Treasurer
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Adam Bockelie
>> 801.209.7233
>> <bockelie@mit.edu <mailto:bockelie@mit.edu>>
>>
>> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>> Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
>> Class of 2011
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jason Alexander Scott
>> Class Council President
>> MIT Class of 2010
>>
>>
>
> __________________________________
> Alexandra Jordan
>
> MIT 2011
> Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science
> Political Science
>
> amjordan@mit.edu <mailto:amjordan@mit.edu>
> 916.813.7740
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
Elizabeth A. Denys
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Class of 2011
Department of Electrical Engineering
Department of Mathematics
630.730.1136 | lizdenys@mit.edu
