DCGA: Think about it, how could we improve?

During my time at Denison, I have had my opinions regarding the structure and decision process of the DCGA Finance Committee budgetting for campus organizations. As a freshman I always heard, “DCGA never gives us anything so we can’t do this or that.” This is the reputation that the Finance Committee has had of doing more “cutting” rather than “distributing.” However, after becoming a Treasurer, I noticed, first, how tedious the entire budgeting process actually is. Budgeting involves research, organization and most of all patience. But sometimes it feels like

a waste when all the energy is put into constructing the perfect budget, just to review the budget recommendations, and your budget has been cut to more than half of the requested funds.

Here we begin to ponder, is the committee doing too much cutting? In the last academic year, a large amount of money was allocated to organizations, but what about those organizations that receive money but don’t utilize the funds? That money could have been used by those organization who were denied funding for certain events.

Since I currently hold leadership positions within several organizations, I’m not sure if our budget will be approved. The budgeting and the research behind the proposed events has been rigorous. The sense of a revenue fund is quite interesting and the idea that unused funds are placed in this account is a slap in face for organizations that did research to bring a new event to campus. I understand that a certain amount has to be in the revenue fund but why are certain organizations being denied. This a difficult task that the DCGA Finance faces yearly.At some point, I was upset because last time I reviewed my student account, there was a charge that reflects, “Student Activity Fee,” yet there were some organizations that I am a member of, that did not receive certain funding. However, I still was being charged, so why wasn’t that particular organization not receiving funding at the amount of one charge.

What if the funding process was different and based on membership? The idea would be that because I’m a member of a certain organization, then a portion of my student fee goes toward

that organization’s account. I know this would create difficulties, but does anyone think it is fair for students to consistently pay student fees and their organizations go without proper funding?