Daily Nexus (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, Student Newspaper)
April 12 2005
Finance Board Questions Leg Council Actions
By Kaitlin Pike – Staff Writer
After giving away the remaining $200 in its Spring quarter budget
Monday afternoon, Associated Students Finance Board members debated
A.S. Legislative Council’s actions last week, which many thought
violated the autonomy of the board.
The board gave $50 each to the Chinese American Association for its
culture show, the UCSB Dance Team for Saturday’s benefit performance
and the Raices de Mi Tierra for a cultural show. It also granted the
Armenian Organization Sisterhood $20 for an event commemorating the
Armenian genocide. The Alpha Kappa Delta Phi sorority received $30
for its Phoenix Scholarship Charity Ball. The Indian Undergraduate
Student Association (INDUS) was the only group who did not receive
funding. The board allocated $700 to INDUS last week, but the group
asked Monday for any possible amount of additional funding for its
`Visions of India’ show.
At last week’s meeting, board members originally allocated $1,300 to
Pi Kappa Alpha (PIKE) fraternity’s Fight Night event. But after the
PIKE representative left the meeting, the board debated its initial
decision, and decreased the fraternity’s grant to $1,001. Several
members at last week’s meeting said they disapproved of how the money
would be used.
A.S. Leg Council overruled the revision last Wednesday, granting PIKE
the $1,300 that Finance Board had initially given them.
During Finance Board’s remark period Monday, members debated whether
Leg Council should have infringed upon the board’s autonomy in this
instance.
Finance Board Chair Bill Shiebler said Leg Council’s decision was
unnecessary and disregarded the expertise of the board.
`I think it’s too bad Leg Council doled out another $299 of our
budget,’ Shiebler said. `I think Finance Board is the most
knowledgeable in financial matters.’
Shiebler also said council members based their decision on the
opinions of other council members who either did not attend the
meeting or left the meeting early. The board decided to decrease its
funding of Fight Night because of its extravagant budget, which
included limousines for `ring girls,’ and not strictly because the
event inadvertently promoted sexual discrimination, he said.
Off-Campus Rep Adam Graff said neither reason, whether it was because
of sexual discrimination or an excessive budget, justified the
board’s action in lowering PIKE’s funding. Graff said PIKE only asked
Finance Board to partially fund its insurance costs and the cost of
renting the Thunderdome, but it did not ask for any item the board
might find objectionable.
`The justification they gave for changing the funding after the fact
was insufficient and illogical,’ he said. `Be it sexual
discrimination or extravagant budget… neither is sufficient to
warrant [the board] taking this action because it’s not germane to
the funding of the event.’
Even though the board is out of money for the quarter, members said
they would continue to meet for the remainder of the school year to
advise student groups about financing events.