This year the Emergency Support Team (EST) and the Debate Team are up for block funding during the general SU elections, which will be held this Wednesday and Thursday on WebSTAC. Student Life is endorsing EST’s request for $1.49 of each student’s activities fee, but we do not endorse the Debate Team’s request of $3.50 per student.
Block funding, also known as multi-year funding, is a constitutional agreement to provide a group with a lump sum of money each year for two years. It is designed for groups that incur large expenses or otherwise must plan for expensive, long term projects. Voting for a block funding request does not change the amount you pay. It just guarantees that a specific portion of your activities fee will be dedicated to that group.
We decided to support EST’s request because it provides a high-quality, professional-level resource to students on this campus. Furthermore, the services it offers are expensive, yet EST runs such a tight ship that it was able to work the cost down to just $1.49 per student, or about $8,000 for next year.
EST has volunteers on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week when school is in session. In total, its medics work over 16,000 volunteer hours each year. Additionally, most of the medics are Missouri-licensed Emergency Medical Technicians. Members of EST currently pay almost $500 of their own money each to obtain the necessary instruction to become licensed EMTs. They have proven their dedication to serving the campus, and they take as many steps as possible to reduce the cost.
If EST did not exist, ambulances would have to be called much more often. An ambulance ride costs over $300, far more than the $1.49 that EST is asking for around-the-clock, free emergency response. If the university were to pay non-volunteer EMTs with the same qualifications as members of EST, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide the same kind of coverage.
EST needs block funding because sometimes their equipment breaks. Last year they had to spend over $2,000 in one week to replace damaged equipment, an expenditure that would have been much more difficult to incorporate had they been operating through the semester-based budget application process. Also, because many of its costs are unexpected and must be met immediately, EST cannot itemize its future costs as required by the usual budget allocation process.
The Debate Team, on the other hand, failed to convince us of its need for block funding. In addition, it is requesting nearly twice the amount of money per student as EST.
The Debate Team explained that it needs such generous funding to pay for travel expenses and fees for debate tournaments. However, the caliber of WU’s Debate Team is less than stellar, and we do not feel that they are justified in receiving such a large allocation of money. There are plenty of tournaments closer to Missouri for the Debate Team to participate in.
Even more troubling is the fact that we were expecting to be convinced by the Debate Team that their request was legitimate. A reasonable person could be persuaded that increased funding would allow the Debate Team to become better and to achieve more national recognition by competing in more prestigious tournaments.
We sent both groups five questions regarding their block funding requests, and we found ourselves unconvinced by the Debate Team’s answers.
Theoretically, a debate team worth the $18,000 per year it was requesting would be able to effectively argue its case.
We wish that students could vote to give Debate Team’s block funding request to EST-they deserve the money, and we are confident that they would make great use of it. In fact, this is the one thing we were disappointed about in EST. We feel that they low-balled their request in order to ensure a victory at the polls, when in fact they could use the extra money. But in any event, block funding is a great benefit to EST and they deserve every cent of their request.
Remember to vote “yes” for EST and “no” for the Debate Team this Wednesday and Thursday on WebSTAC.