Students at Penn State Behrend have recently addressed the self-funding that Behrend’s Student Government Association (SGA) has used to acquire resources for the organization itself. However, the SGA and its representatives have used their funds responsibly and have received far less funding compared to some of the other high profile clubs on campus.

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Funding from the Student Activity Fee (SAF) is distributed to clubs on campus in a similar way that it is requested from the SGA itself. A request for funding is submitted and members of the SAF Committee decide on the amount of funding that is delegated to the specific club or organization. The SGA requests its own funding and generally receives nearly $120,000 a year, the same amount they received in both 2016 and 2017 from SAF. This funding is not used exclusively by the SGA itself, it is distributed to the organization to be used for further allocation. The way that this funding is used can be found on the SGA website that includes monthly reports detailing the allocation of the lump sum.

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The entire year’s funding was recently updated on their website, but for the 2017-2018 academic year, the SGA was given a total of $12,575.90 for all of their club activities. The remaining funds were distributed to other clubs active on campus. While this is drastically more money than a majority of clubs on campus receive, the SGA has many activities and services that it provides to Behrend students. This funding is also far more restrictive than the $180,000 that the Lion Entertainment Board (LEB) was funded from SAF, or the $100,000 that the Office of Student Activities received for their Speaker Series.

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The reason that this method of funding has fallen under such scrutiny is a result of the way that the SGA requests their funding. When requesting money from the SGA, clubs are told to outline where the money will be allocated within the organization, whereas the SGA itself generally lists that the money will be used for “committee discretionary” purposes to which some students have labeled as “double standard”.

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When asked how he felt about the funding the SGA receives, Brendan Luffy, Treasurer of the Behrend Gaming Club, explained the disparity between the funding and SGA’s use of said funds. “They say ‘committee discretionary’ and they say that [the SGA] uses it for tables and stuff, but it doesn’t seem like that equates to thousands of dollars, said Luffy. However, the SGA keeps track of all of the funding that each committee uses and a list of all activities was made available to the Behrend Beacon by Christs Morris who is the Coordinator of SAF spending.

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While there are circumstances where specific events have been listed in the SGA’s requests, the rationale for not following this standard format every time is because a lump sum is split between any and all of the SGA’s committees and it would be cumbersome to list them all as student government expenses. Some may say that there is hypocrisy here, and that the organization’s transparency is, once again, less than ideal, but the ways that the funding is being put to use is more beneficial to Behrend students compared to some other student organizations.

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When asked about what the SGA has been using its funding for, President John Jarecki explained that it umbrellas many entities within Behrend’s community. From the programming of SGA committees, which he explained directly benefits students, to extra benefits, i.e. food and other resources, the SGA also covers the cost of attending the council of commonwealth student governments which Jarecki explained is the “overarching governing body of Penn State, which is mandatory for the academic affairs and student affairs director, president, and vice president.” Jarecki addressed that none of the funding is being wasted or used in a way that is not in the best interest of the students at Behrend. “I’m personally trying to do the best job that I can. I take this very seriously, and this has become what I do. It's such an important part of who I am. I wake up, and I’m focused on this. With that kind of mindset, you can’t go wrong,” Jarecki explained.

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There have been student government uses of “committee discretionary” in the past that have not been useful for the student body. Ignoring this concern allows for the behavior to continue. As was addressed earlier, a similar claim of this nature came up within discussion within the Behrend Gaming Club.

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“They don’t want to fund events that are low attendance, but when events they throw themselves are low in attendance, they continue to fund themselves,” said Luffy, when discussing the SGA’s Correspondents Dinner which was put on last year. The dinner cost the SGA $1,572.50, and the SAF provided $6,480.63. Jarecki acknowledged, and responded, to this claim as well saying that he believed the event had neither low attendance nor more funding than it deserved. He also stressed that similar events would be altered in the future so as to not cost the student body more while also benefiting them just the same. Morris also supported this claim in saying that events that have never been attempted before are going to be met with adversity; she said that if a similar event were put on this year, the “numbers would look different.”

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In a final defense of the responsibility of SGA spending, Jarecki described a new method of public interaction. This coming week, the student government will be putting out suggestion boxes around campus in order to collect ideas with hopes that the SGA can gauge where students would like to see funding allocated. Jarecki said that he, “wants (students) to address that they’re mad that Elements is gone, and that the Clipper is gone, so that I can bring that to administration.”

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Given the facts and the access to SGA spending, campus government pays its due diligence to the student body. Student oversight of the SGA is  encouraged when it comes to checks and balances regarding the organization, and as the record shows, there have been very few, if any, examples of irresponsible spending from Behrend’s student government.