The Finance Committee was established to correct any mistakes or unreasonable limitations on the budget a group has received or give out start up expenses necessary for select RSOs. The Finance Committee is technically a sub-committee of the Ways and Means Committee however it operates effectively as its own standing committee.

Meeting Time: Tuesday at 8:30 PM in 430




According to the SGA By-Laws, the Finance Committee shall:

"1. Research and recommend to the Senate legislation which shall provide financial information and other such services to Registered Student Organizations.

2. Entertain all motions to appropriate monies from the Finance Reserves.

3. Research and recommend to the Senate, legislation which shall establish systems of Registered Student Organization revenue generation.

4. Assist the Secretary of Finance in the effective implementation Acts of the SGA within the Committee’s jurisdiction."

[T2,C31,S4]

An RSO needing extra funds is expected to have:

• A Proposal for Funds
• An Appointment
• Preparations for Any Questions or Objections

A Proposal for Funds
The Treasurer of the RSO must sit down with their Executive Board (E-Board) when planning a proposal. All costs should be planned for before making any decisions no matter how small. These two internal actions will help an RSO immensely when planning anything. Venders and prices fluctuate for any number of reasons and the SGA understands that it is impossible to predict them all. When unpredicted cots do occur, the Finance Committee is likely, but not certain, to hear your proposal. The committee is a body of people who look over the requests to best serve the student body and the individual RSO. Your Treasurer will appeal their proposals to these senators.

A good proposal has a number of characteristics, some are general to all proposals and some serve only the Finance Committee. The Committee chooses to look at: the number of students that would benefit from the funding indirectly and directly, the amount of money needed for the proposed item, and general tendencies that come from the organization of the Finance Committee. A proposal would also include: an objective of what you would get out of the money, why you should get funding for the item, and where you hope the item will lead you in the future. The latter can be found in numerous texts on proposal writing and will not be talked about here.

The Committee looks at the benefits the item would bring to the university through looking at the number of students affected, the amount of money, the tradition the Finance Committee has with the group, and how hard the group has tried for this money through other avenues. The number of students in of concern as the Finance Committee wishes to please and be accessible to as many students as possible. As representatives of the student body, this is generally the case. The amount of money is crucial as the Finance Committee also wishes efficiency within the student body. A costly project that affects only a few members of a single group is more likely not to be funded. Tradition is a large part of how groups are funded as the Committee wishes to look at the past to see what is possible for the future. A group is probably able to replicate a program of reoccurrence. The Committee will also look at previous efforts to receiving funds and will reward those who try harder. The Committee will be more willing to fund an item if all of this were explained. The group should look elsewhere as a first resort; there are many grants available for cultural RSOs and other programs. This indicates to the Committee how dedicated the group is to the item. This also does not need to be written down, but the Committee would probably ask for the information.

An Appointment
After an RSO has created a proposal, the RSO needs to make an appointment. The Committee holds a meeting once a week, so plan accordingly. An appointment can be acquired via email. A representative from the RSO should email the Chair of the Finance Committee for an appointment and wait for a notification back. Showing up at the meeting and demanding money is unacceptable.

Preparations for Any Questions or Objections
Because you can never tell what a particular Finance Committee will focus on, a broad statement of warning must precede this topic.

Generally speaking, the Finance Committee wants to know everything covered in the section titled “A Proposal for Funds,” but this section will cover some pointers on the subject. Because the Committee has to answer to a higher power (the rest of the student senate and student body) it is wise to relate the funds to a broader theme. A group may need money to purchase baseballs. This, by itself, seems dull. The group may try to reword their statement into a need for baseballs in order to play their next game and possibly succeed in winning a sports club tournament.

Steer away from items that are hard to ask for such as office supplies (they are usually not necessary for the current year) and nonessential items. Other items that a group should steer away from purchasing are: any travel costs, food, T-shirts, shoes, personal items, items commonly used for fundraising (whi

ch should come out of the Revenue Account), and any item that you can possibly wait until next year for. These items draw red flags, but some special circumstances prevail depending on the group’s constitution and obligations.

When deciding where the money you are asking for from the Committee is going, you should move the money in order to cover as many gaps as possible. A group would like to travel to New York City for a conference. That group would make the most effective argument if they focused their Revenue money toward the ride to New York, the Hotel stay and if there is enough left over, food. The Committee is more apt to hand out funds for entrance fees for the conference and not food or the ride.