Student Finance Council to reconvene

The decision to deny approval of a student activities budget had never been made, in MHCC Student Finance Council history, until Tuesday.

On March 10, Mt. Hood’s Associated Student Government (ASG) executive cabinet exercised its authority to deny the proposed activity budgets, which had been adopted in late February.

The Student Finance Council must now schedule another time for both Athletics and Co-curricular activities representatives to reconvene and come up with a new proposal.

The executive cabinet overrode the budget because of two main factors, which Director of Finance Ashley Gass briefly described in an email to the Council members.

Both the Finance Council members and cabinet believed that the means by which the cuts were distributed among programs were not equal in their treatment.

“The consensus was that many members of Finance Council had approached members of the executive cabinet, both during (follow-up open forums) and on their own, to voice their concerns about the way the money was being distributed,” said Lor Brule, director of student organizations and clubs.

“Even though we arrived at a zero-balanced budget, if one group has a larger budget than basically the entire ASG – excluding the director accounts … then it’s a cause for concern,” Brule said.

Lack of information on revenue accounts and transaction histories also contributed to the budget disapproval, according to Gass’s email. This could have prevented the Council from voting informatively.

Chris Josi, the SFC representative for Forensics (speech and debate) weighed in on the matter.

“If people felt that the vote was in any way forced, I think that that’s them not knowing that they had a lot more rights going into that,” Josi said. “If we had been like, ‘Alright, let’s vote,’ and then got a 4/5 vote (a cabinet vote of four yes, five no), I would understand … We would re-discuss. I just think that so many people think, ‘Okay, we got zero, let’s get this done,’ but (then) they had bad feelings about what was done.”

With a re-do, he predicts there may be fresh wounds, however.

“I think that this time around, a lot of people are gonna be hit really hard,” Josi said.

According to cabinet members, LeeAnne Farestrand, senator of finance, mathmatics and science, and Josie Hernandez, director of community affairs, some groups that could have afforded the mandatory 5-percent cut did not take one, and that resulted in a need to re-convene.

“We aren’t targeting any group in particular, but we want it (final budget) to be fair for everyone,” Hernandez said.

According to Brule, the process to re–analyze, vote and approve the budget cuts could take anywhere from three to eight weeks.  “It depends on how willing everyone is to take a critical look at their own budget,” he said.

Dates for the new budget meetings have yet to be determined, but they will take place sometime in the beginning of Spring term, said David Sussman. The Athletics representatives will meet for two hours on a Monday, and the Co-curricular representatives will meet on a Wednesday of that week, he said.