Student groups will experience a streamlined process for receiving funding as part of Student Union’s planned overhaul of its financial system, set to enter preliminary stages as soon as fall 2020.

The overhaul seeks to address concerns over inefficiencies in the system which many student groups found to be a stressful process. Under the new system, the “90% rule” will be eliminated, a new administrative software system will be implemented and there will be less uncertainty over whether or not certain groups will receive funding.

SU’s current financial system has been in place for over a decade and has only gone through minor updates since then.

Former SU budget committee chair sophomore Arjan Kalra noticed problems with this the budgeting system near the end of his term in the spring 2019 semester and decided to look into how it could be improved.

“You shouldn’t have to spend at least 10 hours a week in the SU office as a treasurer, because most of that time should be going towards your group,” Kalra said. “There needs to be more streamlined institutional ways for us to have better communication.”

When SU Vice President of Finance Ariel Ashie reached out to student groups to get feedback about SU’s financial process, she said she found that the process of applying for SU funding could be stressful for students groups due to uncertainty over receiving funding.

“I think also the narrative right now is that a lot of groups feel like they need to fight for their money,” Ashie said. “And I think [the financial overhaul] is a really good way to say ‘We know that you do this, we know this is really important to you, here’s your money off the bat.’”

Ashie reported “desperately wanting to find something new” to replace the “90% rule,” which requires that student groups spend 90% of their allocated funding in order to be considered for the same amount of funding the next semester. The existing rule will be officially abolished with this new change.

“A lot of groups will have maybe one bad semester with some troublesome leadership and then the other 90% of that semester, someone comes in with great ideas, great vision, but then their budget doesn’t necessarily match the program they want to do,” Ashie said. “That, honestly, was the biggest [problem], and I think this is a plan that completely gets rid of that, and really gives groups an opportunity to grow organically without us holding them back in any way.”

The new process for allocating funding to student groups will also be updated, providing three separate processes for allocating funding. First, all student groups will automatically receive a flat amount of funding based on active membership. Groups will have full discretion over how this funding is spent. Flat funding is expected to cover food, social events and GBMs, distributing $6 for every active member with a maximum of $750 per semester.

In addition to flat funding, student groups will also be allowed to request funding for a small number of high-priority events, which will remain consistent from year to year as long as the event continues to occur.

“[The goal] is to make sure that these events that are the highest priority aren’t consistently examined down the the tee every single year because it’s the same performances, the same shows, the same competitions, publications, etc. that the groups are putting on on a regular basis,” Speaker of the Treasury Alexa Jochims said.

Other smaller events and programs will be funded through a system of rolling funding.

“This will be an opportunity for groups to kind of appeal for that programming that’s new that they’re not entirely sure what it’s going to look like,” Ashie said. Each student group will have the opportunity to explain their appeal to a Treasury representative and then later present it to the full Treasury body.

SU is also considering adjusting the block funding petitioning process starting in the fiscal year 2022. Block-funded groups, viewed by SU as a line item instead of student groups, will potentially have their funding period lengthened, allowing each group to only petition every two to three years.

In future semesters, SU will also replace their current accounting software with the MyDay program, which is used by most of the University administration.

Although SU does not plan to fully implement the new financial system until spring semester 2021, certain elements of the new system, such as pre-event and post-event forms, will be piloted in order to solicit feedback from the student body and improve the system.

According to Kalra, this type of feedback will be an important part of the process, which will most likely end in a student body-wide vote.

“We’re going to do a lot of targeted outreach at the end of the semester,” Kalra said. “Student group advisors are going to be clued into the process. We’re going to keep checking in with SU’s business staff…and then the student body will have to vote on this.”