Bwog’s favorite Monopoly piece

According to CCSC last night, it’s all about the money money money. Fancy financier Jessie-Joe Milholland gives you the real talk about all the money talk. 

The Columbia College Student Council approved a proposal to admins to raise the student activities fee (part of student life fees) by $4.50 a semester on Sunday night.

The vote came after VP of Finance Michael Li guided the council over the nuances of the proposed change. Of the $739 a semester that CC students pay in student life fees, $108 currently go to student activity fees, which goes to CCSC, which spends it on governing boards or student council events. Student life fees has increased in the past couple of year but not student activity fees. Student group spending has also increased. Li calculated the $4.50 increase based on the governing board increases and the number of CC/SEAS students.

While the increase will technically be $54,000 a year, it will actually only be an approximately $37,000 increase because ESC has been spending about $10,000 over budget for the last few years because of a large surplus. The money is intended for governing boards, but, since half of F@CU will be people elected in the spring, there is nothing officially requiring the money to go to governing boards. Li said that there’s the potential that CCSC could be overfunding governing boards if the increase happens, but there’s no way to raise the fees without running into this issue.

Both ABC and SGB have had to make cuts. SGB actually had 2-3 budget appeals this year, but they were able to fund them through the surplus. According to Tony Lee, president of ABC, 21 groups applied to be recognized this year (“a record”), and 7 were accepted (the usual number). The maximum allocation for new groups is $250 a semester. ABC groups are hurting because Barnard Printing suddenly closed and tech and security fees are increasing. Also, according to ABC Treasurer Jared Greene, the Accounting Department has made it more difficult to get reimbursed.

After the presentation, a student in the audience, LionFund CEO Mike Hansen, showed the council a chart he had made showing that increases in money for governing boards have consistently outpaced inflation increases. He blamed this on “massive inefficiencies” in allocations. He related that Columbia Financial Investment Group, which he has previously been the president of, had met with many speakers on an under-$1,000 budget, but some groups are spending money on dinners for their groups or Eboards. Cornell, Dartmouth, and Brown also have “far more administrative oversight” in allocations according to Hansen. Hansen stated that an increase in student activity fees would not fix the budget problems.

Greene from ABC responded by pointing out that different groups have different types of events, some which are more expensive, and many requests get denied. Hansen also alleged that CFIG only got an increase in money (which Hansen believed they deserved) because the treasurer of CFIG was friends with someone at ABC, and Greene responded saying that CFIG initially got the highest amount of money available for a new group and has gotten a 10% increase for their activities. A member of SGB said there have been large cuts and some groups have been de-recognized.

If the proposal passes at ESC, it will go to Susan Chang in Student Affairs. Chang will send it to the Term Bill discussion in March, where Deantini and other admins will review the proposal and many other budget issues.

The council also tackled the issue of late-night study space at the meeting. There are only 11 spaces for groups to study, and they must be shared among all students. John Jay Dining Hall has been tried in the past, but the acoustics make it a bad space for studying. The upper level of Ferris is open for group study space, but only 6 or 7 council members knew about it and even less have used it.

Deantini has given a “flat no” on opening Hamilton for study space on safety and property concerns. However, since the specific for student denial to are unclear, some council members, especially Class of 2018 President Ezra Gontownik and Student Services Rep Chris Godshall, want to push harder for answers about study space in Hamilton. “You could literally build a bomb in Mudd,” said Godshall, referencing Mudd’s 24/7 study space availability.

This lead to speculation among council members as to why Hamilton is closed of to group study space: University Senator Marc Heinrich said it was possible to protect the Admissions’ and Dean’s offices, CCSC President Peter Bailinson said it could have been about students moving desks around, Student Services Rep Charles Sanky pointed out that two windows have been broken inside Hamilton recently, and Class of 2016 Rep Sameer Mishra speculated that it could have been due to Journalism student drinking in Hamilton.

While the Bailinson is still looking into study spaces elsewhere, such as opening up Uris more, Bailinson said his takeaway from the discussion was that “Hamilton might not be worth giving up on.”

Updates:

• The Senate is considering creating a commission to “formally take on diversity.” Interested students should contact CC University Senator Ramis Wadwood or SEAS University Senator Jillian Ross.
• Singh is working with Sexual Assault Advisor Suzanne Goldberg on prevention. According to Singh, Columbia’s prevention is “completely ineffective” like prevention at most schools. Singh and Goldberg are hoping for pilot programs in prevention in the Spring semester.
• Sandwich Ambassador Joshua Burton will likely give his State of the Sandwich Address on December 8 in Lerner.
• Some council members are working on a baked goods vendor list. Since many groups sell baked goods to raise funds, the proposal is to set up a listserv of groups that can supply baked goods. Groups that want baked goods for events would then email bakedgoods@columbia.edu, and the first group to respond to the email would supply the goods after some bartering over prices.
• A survey on drop deadlines is coming out tomorrow.

The key to success via SodaHead