Club Boards Question Allocations

Community Impact, the board that finances and oversees 25 community service programs at Columbia, is set to hold its open house tonight in the wake of a major budget cut. The cut comes at a time when officers say CI is integral to bolstering Columbia’s public image.

Last spring, the Funding at Columbia University board—composed of incoming and outgoing student council presidents and responsible for divvying up funds between club governing boards—allocated 10 percent less funding to Community Impact than in 2006. Other governing boards, including the Student Governing Board and the Activities Board at Columbia, saw funding increases.

According to CI board members, they asked for the same amount of money they were allotted last year—$84,264. Instead, they received $74,223—a decrease, they said, that would cut into their debt recovery and normal annual plans.

Elizabeth Strauss, SEAS ’08 and a member of the Engineering Student Council, said that the decrease in funding did not represent a tangible cut in CI’s funds. She added that the decision was made because CI ended last semester with a rolling surplus, and that the F@CU board found it unnecessary to allocate additional money for debt coverage.

“We didn’t decrease their operating budget; we just didn’t double over money that was already there,” Strauss said. “We thought that with a surplus, CI wouldn’t need money for debt coverage.”

Strauss said that while F@CU did not fulfill CI’s internal budget request for debt recovery funds, the board gave CI what it requested in terms of funds for its member groups.

CI board members said they found the move particularly galling because it comes at a time when Columbia appears intent on publicizing CI’s programs in order to demonstrate its support for neighboring communities. Columbia features CI on its Neighbors Web site, which delivers updates on the proposed Manhattanville expansion and describes ways in which the University is aiding the local community.

“Sometimes CI is used politically to show how much Columbia is involved in the community,” board member Susana Bernal, CC ’09, said.

“It’s a crucial time for CI to be doing its work,” board member Allie Feldberg, CC ’08, added.

The motive behind F@CU’s decision to decrease CI’s budget, as well as other funding decisions, has also been called into question by students outside the board.
SGB chair Jonathan Siegel, CC ’08, who has voiced similar concerns about the size of his board’s allocation, said he felt that the amount of thought put into funding allocations at F@CU was “next to nothing.”

CI board members said they did not receive enough justification from the student councils for why the funding was allocated this way. While the board received an account for $6,500 of the budget cuts, including $4,000 for debt recovery and $2,500 for their volunteer appreciation dinner, members said that the explanation still could not account for a $3,500 cut.

“Before we [the boards] even present, they basically have an idea, I think, of what they’re going to give us,” Siegel said. “After we present, they debate it together and come to some kind of number. And then once they come to that number, then they make up an explanation to justify that number. There is no reason to assume at any point that those explanations have any relation to reality.”

“I agree with Jon, F@CU isn’t perfect, but I definitely would not go so far as to say it’s arbitrary,” CCSC President and F@CU board member Michelle Diamond, CC ’08, who as incoming CCSC president participated in the funding decisions, said.

There have been several reports of an ongoing feud between Siegel and Diamond. In an e-mail on which Diamond accidentally copied Siegel, she referred to him, writing, “that kid needs to be put in his place.” As she was campaigning for a spot on CCSC’s executive board last spring, allegations came out that Diamond tried to broker a deal whereby her ticket would receive the endorsements from SGB groups in exchange for the promise of a substantial increase in funding. Diamond and her One Columbia ticket were cleared of any misconduct by the CCSC elections board.

Diamond denied last night that there was any animosity between the two. “Anything between Jon and I is really water under the bridge now,” she said. She also stated that she did not wish that the e-mail be published, saying “I feel like this would make people feel that they have to choose sides, which isn’t true.”

“People send e-mails by mistake all the time when they’re in the heat of an argument and I certainly don’t begrudge anybody for that,” Siegel said upon learning that the e-mail would be published last night.

Regarding the cuts to CI, Diamond said “I am 100 percent confident that there were no funding cuts made on personal feeling towards CI,” noting that much of the board had been members of Community Impact groups.

Jacob Weaver, CC ’09 and treasurer of the Activities Board at Columbia, said he disagreed that the student councils did not put enough thought into funding allocations. “We think F@CU did the best they could with their budget limitations,” he said. “We asked for more money, but I couldn’t have asked for a more thought-out process.”

Mary Kohlmann and Alicia Outing contributed to this article.

Laura Schreiber can be reached at laura.schreiber@columbiaspectator.com.