RSO Funding Board addressed students and organization members on Monday about its dwindling funds.
Chris Haakinson, director of finance for ASUW, said that there is only $140,000 left compared to $136,000 last year. However, more events were funded last year.
“We’ve funded more in the fall than we have in the spring. We have approximately $17,000 left and we funded 56 events last year compared to only 37 events this year,” Haakinson said.
Haakinson says that RSOs have been requesting an average of $1,000 more for each event this year than they were last year, which he partially attributes to increasing prices of food and decorations.
Haakinson said that funding cuts were made in Fiscal Year ’12 that were bigger than cuts made in Fiscal Years ’11 and ’13, but that they were not trying to cut as much as possible, just what they could.
Hunter Christensen, the head of RSO Funding Board, said one of his concerns was that RSOs were asking for more money and that not as many organizations were receiving funding.
Some of the solutions he offered to this problem included increasing the amount of money RSOs are given while increasing student fees, setting a cap for money given to RSOs for the year and putting a cap on specific events. Another potential solution was to require that RSOs match the money the board had given them.
While increasing student fees is a potential solution, ASUW president Joel Defebaugh said that student fees would not be increased this semester.
“We won’t be looking to increase student fees for this semester, but it is something that we’ll be looking at for next semester,” Defebaugh said.
Defebaugh also said that one cap solution considered was $10,000 per RSO and possibly dividing that into $5,000 per semester.
At the town hall-style meeting, attendees were encouraged to offer possible solutions for the diminishing funds.
Some of the solutions students offered included implementing stricter deadlines for funding requests as opposed to having a rolling deadline, and to have funding for decorations be only a one-time expense and allowing RSOs to come back for other items such as food for their events.
RSO funding will be an issue that ASUW will continue to look at as there has been no solution settled upon yet. Christensen encouraged those with concerns to attend RSO Funding Board meetings from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays in the Union.
