In its first year being divided into subcommittees, the Student Finance Committee has allocated activities fees to 116 groups, with 19 losing funding in the process. Last year only three student groups received less money from the previous school year.

While 19 groups is a significant increase, SFC Chair Ravi Patel said the number is representative of the financial scrutinizing each student organization went under.

“(The increase in the number of groups who had reduced funding) was mainly because we analyzed budgets more specifically,” Patel said. “In previous years since it’s been one committee analyzing all 116 groups. This year, we had the subcommittees to analyze what each group spent.”

Nineteen student groups applied for AcFee money for the first time this year, and 15 were granted some portion of their request. The other four were among the seven organizations who received no funding.

Patel said each group’s spending was micro-analyzed as opposed to previous years when a “blanket approach” was used to allocate finances.

“The subcommittees took each application and broke it down into specific events and then broke the events down,” Patel said. “We looked for ways to reduce funding without losing too much of the event,” like reducing costs that were either minor or could be funded by outside income, which he said most groups have.

“We were more focused on the budget, more efficient and more specific,” Patel said. “We spent more time on each application.”

Programming Co-chair Jess Cohen, who had the largest budget to work with, said her subcommittee was very conscious to make sure the money was invested properly to the greatest benefit of the students.

“We had to make sure we were not throwing money into these big organizations when service organizations just want $200. We had to make sure they were serving the student body. We went through each event, and each event was broken down into how much they spent,” said Cohen, who said even expenses like coffee were accounted for.

In past years a 14-person committee read applications and held interviews for all the organizations. This year the groups were divided into five subsections: arts, cultural interests, programming, service and special interests. Those subcommittees reviewed the requests made by each group and distributed the money as they saw fit. SFC, part of Vanderbilt Student Government, approved all allocations at the end of the process.

VSG Vice President and Service Subcommittee Co-chair Wyatt Smith said he was pleased with the new system.

“It was much-improved overall,” Smith said. “By decentralizing the process, we spread the burden out among several groups.”

Through the closer inspection of the group’s spending this year, the committees were able to give groups specific feedback on ways they can get more money.

“Many of the reductions in funding occurred due to overbudgeting for specific items or events, a large reserve that had built up for the organization with an earmarked purpose and improper fiscal management either by advisers or by student leaders,” Patel said.

The process is also supposed to help students be “more financially responsible and not spend extraordinary amounts of money that do not contribute to the enhancement of … student life,” a press release said. Patel said he is already seeing this in some of the student groups.

“Because we were more specific with budgets, organizations were more specific,” Patel said, “and faced reductions in requests.”

Smith said they will continue to work on giving more financial help in the future.

“We’re going to do a better job of making it a continual process. ... The VSG organizational committee will work with groups throughout the year,” Smith said, saying the subcommittees would help student groups set their budgets and remind them to keep receipts.

Cohen, who will be the chair of SFC next year, said she wants to adjust the application to make it more uniform and helpful to the groups.

“It would be more of a journal format … maybe in an Excel spreadsheet,” Cohen said. “Groups could keep track of their spending as they go.”

Smith said the improvements made this year will continue to help VSG properly allocate the money for student organizations.

“We want to be able to maximize the use of our activity fee money,” Smith said. “We want to get the most bang for the buck.”

—Sara Gast can be reached at sara.m.gast@vanderbilt.edu

Below are the AcFee allocations student groups received from SFC.