This Wednesday and Thursday, Washington University students will have a chance to decide how part of the activities fee, which comes out of their tuition, is allocated by voting on block funding for two campus groups. This year, Wash. U. Build and Campus Y are asking the student body to approve their budgets rather than going through the Student Union budgetary process.

“Block funding is for student groups that want a set dollar amount of each student’s activity fee to be automatically allocated to them each year,” said sophomore Chris Wray, speaker of the Student Union Treasury. “Student groups thus bypass the budget process used by the Student Union Treasury; they are granted money directly by the student body. Block funding goes in two-year cycles and requires a two-thirds vote by the student body to pass.”

Block funding does not raise the activity fee or give groups additional funding, Wray explained.

“I don’t think many students understand that passing a block funding request does not mean they will have to pay more money; it simply means that a group will receive a set portion of the activity fee.”

Wash U Build, which is applying for block funding for the first time, believes that block funding is necessary to continue their community involvement. Going through the Student Union Budgetary Process, Wash U Build has typically received only 20 to 50 percent of their budget. They are asking for $1.84 from each activity fee paid tot he school.

“We realized with our current way of getting funding that trying to make some long term plans to build a house, we were unable to meet our long term goals,” said sophomore Sean Marz, vice president of Wash U Build. “Our long term goal is to build a house in 2005.”

Marz said she hopes that block funding will ease these limitations.

“Currently, our opportunities are rather limited when we’re not building a house due to the funding. The only way to get students building together is to be building a house.”

Campus Y has received block funding in the past two elections and will re-apply this year. The community service organization houses 15 smaller groups and, according to senior Ellen Manz, president of Campus Y, they cannot predict what sort of funding they will need throughout the year. She said submitting a budget to the Treasury can sometimes be a hassle.

“[Block funding] helps us to know in advance how much money we have,” said Manz. “We can’t see beforehand what costs we’re going to have because we have so many groups that work within us. So, we can’t organize one budget at the beginning of the year. We wouldn’t be able to tell Student Union what we’re spending.”

Campus Y contributes $9.30 to the community with every dollar that it receives from Student Union funding. They are asking for $6.57 form each activities fee, the same amount of money that students have approved in the past two elections.

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