The Daily pointed out the root of the problems with the student group funding system in an editorial yesterday (“ASSU needs to overhaul budget approval process,” Jan. 18): a lack of accountability over many years.

For too long, the Senate consented to funding ludicrous expenses like signs for political protests, souvenir T-shirts for student groups and weekly meals for group members at meetings. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee last year, I repeatedly objected to these pork barrel projects. However, the rest of the committee used the excuse that these groups were “special and deserve[d]” funding for these bizarre boondoggles. This excuse was used time and again by last year’s senators, and almost certainly by previous years’ senators, to defend their fiscal recklessness.

Years of overspending were buffered by a $700,000 general fee surplus left over from 1999, when the ASSU Senate divided into the Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council. Before that, the graduate senators were able to keep undergraduate spending in check, as they typically served for longer periods of time and were more willing to make unpopular funding cuts to protect the system from bankruptcy.

When the old ASSU Senate divided, the general fee surplus was also divided into undergraduate and graduate portions. The graduates held their portion steady while the undergraduates allowed spending to explode.

The increased spending finally resulted in the shutdown of general fee funding for student groups last winter. After the election of the new senators in the spring, we implemented new, tougher funding policies. Funding caps for meeting food and event food were lowered; food had accounted for over $104,000 in spending the previous year (overspending of the entire general fee totaled $158,000). Equipment expenses were no longer funded in full, switching to an 80 percent subsidy.

However, it became clear during fall quarter that these restrictions were simply not enough to deal with the shortfall. The senate secured a contract with CopyAmerica for cheaper copies for Stanford students and then funded student groups at the CopyAmerica rates; this may seem trivial, but copies accounted for nearly $30,000 of last year’s spending. We banned meeting food, restricting food only to campus-wide events.

Yet, this still was not enough to make funding sustainable. At the close of fall quarter, a joint committee of the Undergraduate Senate and Graduate Student Council took a critical look at the undergraduate funding policies. The joint committee recommended implementing a soft cap and a system of matching funds for honoraria. The Appropriations Committee then implemented a $40 per group member soft cap and required any honoraria above $1,000 be matched with other sources of funding.

Will this be the last round of restrictions on the General Fee? We hope so. Do we know? Frankly, no. After last year’s disaster, this is a year of experimentation. This will enable the Undergraduate Senate to find policies that will make the system sustainable for the foreseeable future so that in future years senators, student groups and students will not have to grapple with this problem.

Students stand at a crossroads. Are these funding policies what you want your funding system to look like? Is $40 per member an appropriate level to fund a student group? If your answer is yes, then keep the general fee where it is. If you believe students should be taxed more to increase levels of funding for student groups, then vote to increase the general fee in the spring quarter election. If $40 per member is too high and the Senate policies are still too generous, then you should vote to decrease the general fee. The decision rests with the student body. The Senate can only set policies within the amount of money students give to us to give back to groups.

Chris is the chair of the 2005-2006 ASSU Senate. He can be reached at chrisn@stanford.edu.