Dear Esam,

We thank you for providing your continued weekly updates of the workings of our USG Senate.

After attending the first senate meeting of the 2006-2007 academic year early in September, it occurred to me that the main connection of the USG Senate with the student body is through individual clubs. I daresay that most students will never set foot in an actual USG Senate meeting or Executive Council meeting. Thus, it is in my opinion that you are providing your fellow students with an invaluable informational service.

Concerning your most recent submission, I would like to support your move against PPT Romano’s lowering of the student activity fee. PPT Romano’s recent submission to the Statesman concerning the lowering of the student activity fee has stated that the USG has too much money. Adam Zimmerman, a former Statesman editor and member of the class of 2004, has hailed the proposed lowering of the activity fee as historic and unprecedented.

While admitting a surplus of money does seem a noble action, I do feel that the $1.75 that would be gained by the students could be used in a much more effective manner. For example, the $48,000 that this money amounts to could be used to partially fund the newly proposed Providing Academic Support to Students (P.A.S.S.) Act. You have also stated the possibility of other uses for the money in your letter.

To me, lowering the activity fee seems be a cheap way of getting more votes from students in future elections. By lowering the activity fee, the USG is most definitely doing a disservice to the student body by not allocating its funds properly.

Here at the Statesman we had the unfortunate situation this past summer where the USG informed us of an 85% cut in our university funding. This cut amounted to a loss of $25,000, money that is much needed for our continued functioning as a twice weekly publication. Although the USG has graciously restored our funding in recent weeks, the issue of financial responsibility remains of great importance.

It is the USG’s responsibility to allocate its funds effectively and efficiently. After reviewing the allocation of money in the spring 2006 budget, several of the other editors on our staff reported some questionable raises in funding for several clubs and organizations.

To further explain my point, I will single out the Caribbean Student’s Organization, one of several clubs and organizations that received a severe increase in funding in the spring 2006 budget. The CSO’s current yearly funding has been set at $28,000. Putting this number in perspective, the Statesman, which contributes two publications per week to the campus community, received just under $5000 dollars. While our funding has been restored to its rightful value of $30,000, one can argue that the loss of funds should not have happened in the first place.

And to be fair to the CSO, I have just finished browsing their website: http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Clubs/cso/events.htm. If anyone is interested, it appears that they have a fashion show on November 13. Tickets for this show will go on sale on November 8. It might be possible that they actually spent all of their $28,000 on producing this show. With $28,000, I think that some type of show should be put on by CSO every month, not once a semester.

Here at the Statesman, editors routinely put in 15 hours a week just into layout for the paper. Our production times are set for Wednesday and Sunday afternoons and nights. This 15 hour figure does not include time for editorial meetings (Thursday nights) and time taken for actual editing and assigning of articles (Tuesday and Saturday nights). In addition, most of our editors routinely contribute to the content of our paper. Editors get paid 25 dollars per issue, amounting to 50 dollars per week. For the amount of work that we put into the paper, we could make much more money by serving pizza at the SAC.

Our financial reports have reported a loss of money over the past several years. Just imagine having to inform our editors and staff writers in the middle of the summer that there might not be a Statesman beyond Fall 2006. For an editor to say that his newspaper, one that has been with the university since 1957, might be on the brink of collapse within one semester all the while SBU is launching a new School of Journalism, something must be wrong.

Seeing small, upstart clubs receiving huge sums of money for doing almost nothing, I feel thoroughly disheartened. My apologies to the E-Board of the CSO, but there does seem to be a problem with accountability in the USG. In my opinion, some higher check on the USG power must be set in place and enforced to make sure that the responsibility of running the USG is taken very seriously. Maybe several of the faculty members in the University Senate can keep an eye.

As far as lowering the student activity fee, the USG should have bigger fish to fry. A plan should be made for this year’s budget to allocate all the surplus of funds the USG is currently holding. Or maybe, the USG Senate can vote on lowering the activity fee by additional 25 cents and give the balance of money to the CSO.

I wonder if the $25,000 dollars taken away from the Statesman was accidentally given to the CSO. That might make some sense.

Sincerely,

Suraj Rambhia

Editor-in-Chief

Stony Brook Statesman