The Tartan

Javier Hayes
Visual Editor

This year’s Joint Ratification Meeting (JRM), held on March 26, introduced a new funding system for the Carnegie Mellon’s student organizations but ended up having to end early due to unforeseen difficulties.

The JRM is an annual meeting between the Undergraduate Student Senate (Senate) and the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) to discuss budget and election results for the new year and vote to ratify these changes (hence the name). 

This meeting’s purpose was to ratify the new budget of student orgs, as well as some other important changes. Only about half of the Undergraduate Student Senate attended. This led to some complications as the meeting went on, such as the inability to ratify the results of the recent election. Undergraduate Student Senate barely reached quorum, the minimum number of members required to vote on matters.

Executive Budget

GSA and Senate both voted to approve the new executive budget, with a slight increase from last year. This involved more money to the elections board as well as some shuffling around positions with the Director of Finance. The data analyst role was introduced this year in the hopes of assisting the executive board look at organizational budgets more holistically. The finance role was hoping to fill that gap but was too time consuming and had very little overall effect, so the role is being scrapped for the next academic year.

Fiscal Tier Structure

The board introduced a new method of handling budgets with a tiered structure in this meeting. The way it works is that each group is assigned a fiscal tier of guaranteed funding from the student government, and then can possibly receive more through “supplemental funding.” 

The tiers follow $0, $500, $1,000, $2,500, $5,000, $9,000, $13,000, $18,000, $25,000, and special tiers above that for unique organizations like Activities Board, WRCT, Activities Fair, cmuTV, Sweepstakes, Spring Carnival, AB Tech, The Tartan, and EMS. Each organization is assigned a tier based on their historical expenditures. 

According to the Director of Finance, Brandon Zhou, a junior in Social and Decision Sciences and Philosophy, 149 out of 286 student organizations met about their budget. Out of those, advisors rated that 84 of them “represented themselves well.” The number of organizations has been increasing, but this has aligned with a decrease in active participation per organizations, which raises some questions about how many people these funds are affecting.

The board foresaw a deficit due to under-allocation of funds, but they still projected about $350,000 in supplemental funds.

Tiers are set funding amounts, but can be changed by both bodies passing a two-thirds vote on the matter, which is what the rest of the meeting ended up being about.

Second round of the funding appeals procedure

The JFC appeals procedure consisted of various organizations asking for more funding. 

Chabad of Carnegie Mellon University asked for a tier increase which would total to $5,000 of increased funding. Their argument was that their organization was growing, their weekly Shabbat dinners averaged over 80 attendees every week, and their lunch sessions had tripled in attendance. To expand these events and properly feed everyone they would need more budget. 

The bodies were concerned about parity with other religious orgs, and that seeing as fees would mostly go to food. According to one GSA member, “Chabad’s job isn’t to feed everyone, but for positive Jewish activities and views within the university community, from their constitution.”

The appeal to increase funding was rejected as the motion failed both bodies.

The Asian Christian Fellowship asked for an additional $1,500, as they are having increasing difficulty covering transportation costs for members to attend their community church. This church is relatively far and not accessible via public transport. They also argued that UPitt gives their organization $4,000.

The bodies noted that as of the appeals, the organization was not aware of SLICE vans available to organizations. The cost of gas would still add up, but it would be less than their current situation. Another member asked why the fellowship didn’t go to the closer church in Oakland and suggested that their members split and travel to both churches from time to time. ACF argued that the church they go to is the church that their organization is connected to and is their community.

The appeal was rejected as the motion failed both bodies.

Dancers’ Symposium asked for a $7,000 increase in funding, seeing as AB has raised prices for their services. Additionally, the space they share with KPDC will cost an additional $3,000 per semester. They also stated that they are already struggling with money and their current budget is not feasible. They have 200 dancers and two daughter organizations which go through the Symposium, and last semester they had to make a lot of budget cuts.

The bodies argued that $7,000 was simply a lot of money, but there were no other arguments to be made.

The appeal was accepted as the motion passed both bodies.

The Ethiopian and Eritrean Student Association was asking for a jump in 2 tiers, from $1,000 to $5,000. They argued that they were new, but already had 150 students and were very active in the Carnegie Mellon and Pittsburgh community. 

They are also the only cultural club for an African country on campus. They calculated their spending and it came to $4,700, and they want to host one more large event on campus.

The bodies explained that they were hesitant to give so much to newer orgs with no historical spending, and that most cultural events earn money through ticket sales. 

The appeal was accepted; the motion passed both bodies.

College Democrats asked for a $500 increase. They credited this to having hosted some of the largest political events in campus history. The only reason their spending was so high last semester was from funding via external political campaigns, and in non-election years they would not have nearly enough money to host the events they wanted.

The bodies argued a parity issue, and one member brought up the possibility of cyclical tiers that increase and decrease in specific years, but ended up being dismissed over irrelevance. 

The appeal was rejected as the motion failed both bodies.

Scotty Labs, the group that created CMUCourses, CMUEats, CMUMaps, and the lost and found website, as well as the host of TartanHacks, asked for an increase of just above $10,000 to funding as their corporate sponsorships are inconsistent and they wanted more money for security costs, as they handle sensitive campus data.

The bodies argued that the organization’s events had a nebulous real impact, and that their efforts to “increase campus prestige” was not a priority.

The appeal was rejected as the motion failed both bodies.

The Tepper Undergraduate Real Estate Club is a new club, but they have been hosting a lot of speaker events that hosted many professionals and wanted an increase in funding to host more and better events. 

The bodies argued that these types of orgs are generally able to get their own funding, otherwise supplemental funding should do. One member also suggested that the Tepper school should be covering costs.

The appeal was rejected as the motion failed both bodies.

Sky@CMU asked for a large tier increase of what amounted to $4500, as they are a prominent mental health and self care service on campus as the other services are lacking. 

Their organization has also been rated highly by HuffingtonPost and Forbes and other such news sites.

Their appeal was rejected, as the motion failed both bodies.

Scotch’n’Soda’s case was unique, as they are in a special tier of funding called “General Exceptions.” They were asking to be moved into the even higher special tier of “Campus Services + Traditions,” as well as honorariums, which is special funding for executive members of the organizations.

The appeals at last week’s meeting took longer. Many members of the undergraduate senate began leaving, but they could barely received enough votes to reject both of Scotch’n’Soda’s appeals after about 15 minutes of argument among the body. 

The meeting had to be adjourned after this because they no longer had quorum, and the meeting ended before completing the agenda.

Some members of the bodies were reached for comment about the meeting. 

One member lamented about the lengthiness of the meetings, that senators “Go into these meetings expecting them to go over time.”

Another simply said that student government was hard, and that seeing as this was the first meeting where the funding tiers were put into practice, it was bound to face difficulties.

The early adjourning also meant that the body could not ratify the election results for the next academic year.