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Tuesday, March 19
The Indiana Daily Student

INPIRG, IUSA address student organization funding

If the Indiana Public Interest Research Group members is successful in its recent efforts, student organizations may soon receive more funding.

The IU Student Association Congress tabled a resolution, championed by INPIRG, in support of changing the way students can fund student organizations during an assembly meeting Monday.

When students register for classes, they are presented with a bursar optional fee: a list of student organizations to which they have the option to donate, Jonah Simon, INPIRG representative, said.

Under the current system, student organizations must acquire the signatures of at least 25 percent of the student body to get on the list.

Student organizations must then receive funding through the bursar optional fee from at least 10 percent of the student body to stay on the list.

Currently, only IU Dance Marathon receives funding through the bursar optional fee from at least 10 percent of the student body. Therefore, only IUDM remains on the list.

In fact, most student organizations receive funding through the bursar optional fee from only 1 to 2 percent of the student body.

“There are 750 organizations on campus and think about how many are served as (the system) exists now,” Ty Nocita, IUSA press secretary, said.

Under the proposed system, student organizations must instead get the signatures of 10 percent of the student body to be on the spring IUSA general election ballot, Simon said.

Student organizations must then receive the vote of the 20 percent of the student body during the Spring IUSA general election to get on ?the list.

Student organizations would then remain on the list for three years, whether or not they receive funding through the bursar optional fee from at least 10 percent of the student body.

“The coolest thing is it’s democratically decided because the student body can vote for whatever (organization) that they want to fund,” Matthew Gough, INPIRG campus organizer, said. “It’s the most democratic way to support an organization.”

With the current system, students must opt in to donate to the student organization, Simon said. In other words, students must check a box next to the name of the organization to donate to that organization.

The proposed system would require students to instead opt out to not donate to the student organization, Simon said.

The box next to the name of the organization is already checked and students must uncheck the box to not donate to that organization.

The purpose of the proposed system, Grough said, is to increase funding toward student organizations by increasing awareness of the bursar optional fee.

However, concerns regarding the portion of the resolution that forces students to opt out to not donate rather than opt in to donate forced the IUSA Congress to table the resolution until the next meeting.

“A large amount of students on congress, including myself, had issues with the waivable fee because it is automatically assumed that students would pay it,” said James McHugh, IUSA ?speaker of the house. “If a student was to miss the page, or click through it, then they would be charged all of those fees with no knowledge of agreeing to do so.”

Certain representatives believe this portion of the resolution preys on students’ ignorance, relying on the expectation that certain students will accidentally leave the boxes next to the names of all of the student organizations checked and thereby unknowingly donating to all of the organizations.

“The idea of preying on ignorance, I think, is a false pretense,” Gough said.

Gough said students will be aware that they must opt out not to donate to the student organization because many of the students will have already signed petitions in support of the organization being added to the list or voted in support of the organization being added to the list.

Gough also said students will be aware that they must opt out not to donate to the student organization.

“The idea is to empower student organizations to be able to do more with more funding, so if the campus democratically votes for it, it makes, since that students would fund it,” Gough said. “But they could also opt out if they didn’t support it financially or ideologically.”

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