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[Paul.Gunderson]

Yes, thank you for that quote. I am quite aware of what I said because I stand behind it.

but I don't think we should push them to use more of it just to reduce rollover.

This is what I'm talking about. To insinuate that we would do that "just" to reduce rollover is disrespectful to the entire organization that you are a part of.

I never said that I don't want student organizations to spend their money.

Ya, you said you don't want to push them to use it. In fact, you're instituting a plan that would take money away BECAUSE you don't want them to use it. If student organizations would use the money, your plan would be futile. I see the huge difference now, thanks for the clarification.

If a trend starts where organizations use more than 75%, we raise the can simply raise the percentage.  If organizations start to use close to 100%, we stop the practice.  Until then, this is a sustainable practice

This plan will never, ever, ever, ever work. As I said before, banks have security, we do not. Your contingency plan is to take money from the reserves, but you want to get rid of them. You offer no security for student organizations, and yet you want to be the guaranteer of their funding.

And your proposed percentage change system is based on reactivity instead of proactivity. You can't then guarantee it when student organizations request more than the 75% in reimbursement until the next fiscal year, which won't help them when they need their money. We'd essentially be lying to student organizations when we give them a budget and don't back it up. This plan is severely flawed. And then once it reaches the point of complete ineffectiveness, you'd just revert back to the current model. So, at the end of the day, the plan would accomplish nothing but waste a lot of time.

Why not focus on the real problem: having student organizations use their money. Or try focusing on an actually feasible and workable solution. Either way, quit wasting time on a broken system.

[Mike Nagel]

Well, at the next College Dems meeting, I'll bring up that we should start spending our money for the sake of spending it. 

Ya, you said you don't want to push them to use it. In fact, you're instituting a plan that would take money away BECAUSE you don't want them to use it. If student organizations would use the money, your plan would be futile. I see the huge difference now, thanks for the clarification.

Maybe we should consider this idea to reduce the excess rollover caused by my evil plot to keep organizations form using their money.  All sarcasm aside, this plan isn't based on me wanting organization to use their money, its just based on me being realistic in expecting that that won't happen. 

This plan will never, ever, ever, ever work. As I said before, banks have security, we do not. Your contingency plan is to take money from the reserves, but you want to get rid of them. You offer no security for student organizations, and yet you want to be the guaranteer of their funding.

And your proposed percentage change system is based on reactivity instead of proactivity. You can't then guarantee it when student organizations request more than the 75% in reimbursement until the next fiscal year, which won't help them when they need their money. We'd essentially be lying to student organizations when we give them a budget and don't back it up. This plan is severely flawed. And then once it reaches the point of complete ineffectiveness, you'd just revert back to the current model. So, at the end of the day, the plan would accomplish nothing but waste a lot of time.

Why not focus on the real problem: having student organizations use their money. Or try focusing on an actually feasible and workable solution. Either way, quit wasting time on a broken system.

Well, until the unlikely event that organizations use all of their money this will work and we could have some years with net gain and some with a net loss.

And of course we do not know if this will be successful every year.  Didn't Brown say during his report that we have no idea how much more it will cost to pay for 6 people to attend conferences, rather than two.  What if this causes a us to need a reserve request for Tier II budgets this year?  You are being reactive and not proactive in solving that problem.  It's not the end of the world if every once in a while, our estimations result in the need for a Reserve Request. 

This is what I'm talking about. To insinuate that we would do that "just" to reduce rollover is disrespectful to the entire organization that you are a part of.

So, by insulting you I am insulting Student Government as a whole.

[Paul.Gunderson]

Maybe we should consider this idea to reduce the excess rollover caused by my evil plot to keep organizations form using their money.  All sarcasm aside, this plan isn't based on me wanting organization to use their money, its just based on me being realistic in expecting that that won't happen. 

I'm sorry, I hadn't realized you'd provided evidence to back up your "realistic" expectations. I must have missed the statistical models that account for all variables but the one you're considering. I guess I'll have to check my email.

Well, until the unlikely event that organizations use all of their money this will work and we could have some years with net gain and some with a net loss.

Why would we ever want net gain or net loss? We aren't a business, we aren't trying to be profitable. And, once again, HOW DO YOU PLAN TO SOLVE A NET LOSS WITHOUT USING THE RESERVES?

And of course we do not know if this will be successful every year.  Didn't Brown say during his report that we have no idea how much more it will cost to pay for 6 people to attend conferences, rather than two.  What if this causes a us to need a reserve request for Tier II budgets this year?

Brown said he didn't know how much more it would cost because the cost is dependent on many, many variables, all of which we can't account for. So, instead of making up a false number and using it as a fact, he said we don't know. The major factor in cost of Tier II Organizations is the LOCATION of their events. We don't know that yet, so we can't accurately predict how much the budget will be.

And it most likely will result in a reserve request, but the goal is to have that amount be equal to the rollover so the model is sustainable.

What if this causes a us to need a reserve request for Tier II budgets this year?  You are being reactive and not proactive in solving that problem.  It's not the end of the world if every once in a while, our estimations result in the need for a Reserve Request. 

Right, but that's not the issue at hand. I'm surprised you would try to change the subject like that. And I'm neither reactive nor proactive in this issue, I don't decide the final budget.

And I never said it would be the end of the world. I'm saying the model is flawed, which it is. It would be very stupid to have a plan rely on the reserves when it aims to destroy them.

So, by insulting you I am insulting Student Government as a whole.

You weren't insulting me, or at least you didn't accomplish the goal if you were trying to. You attacked the intentions of the system, the system that was put into place and is still being propelled by your peers. Once again, I don't have the final say on anything, so I don't make any decisions. How could you not be insulting Student Government as a whole then?

[Mike Nagel]

I'm sorry, I hadn't realized you'd provided evidence to back up your "realistic" expectations. I must have missed the statistical models that account for all variables but the one you're considering. I guess I'll have to check my email.

I don't have any data to back this up, I'm just saying that this is likely.  Of course I wouldn't support doing this prior to exploring said issues.  So, we need to do extensive studies before discussing this idea, but yet we don't need to in order to make gthe final decision to raise the fee, or triple the number of people who we fund for conferences?

Why would we ever want net gain or net loss? We aren't a business, we aren't trying to be profitable. And, once again, HOW DO YOU PLAN TO SOLVE A NET LOSS WITHOUT USING THE RESERVES?

In a perfect world we would just break even every year.  But under my proposed system, just like the current one, we will have a net gain in some years and a net loss in others.

Brown said he didn't know how much more it would cost because the cost is dependent on many, many variables, all of which we can't account for. So, instead of making up a false number and using it as a fact, he said we don't know.

That's an improvement

Right, but that's not the issue at hand. I'm surprised you would try to change the subject like that. And I'm neither reactive nor proactive in this issue, I don't decide the final budget.

I was not changing the subject, I was just drawing a comparison to make the point that even you at times acknowledge that uncertainty exists in all financial planning.  But, I guess you don't acknowledge things like that when they don't help your argument.  you don't decide the final budget, but don't pretend your decisions will not play a huge role in it.

And it most likely will result in a reserve request, but the goal is to have that amount be equal to the rollover so the model is sustainable.

Another "goal" that you don't know will reflect reality.  The current system seems to have the same problems as the one we are discussing.  My goal is also to have reserve requests equal rollover.

You weren't insulting me, or at least you didn't accomplish the goal if you were trying to. You attacked the intentions of the system, the system that was put into place and is still being propelled by your peers. Once again, I don't have the final say on anything, so I don't make any decisions. How could you not be insulting Student Government as a whole then?

I wasn't trying to insult you or disrespect you, but I not trying especially hard not to do so either.
Are you sure the Senate agrees that we should reduce rollover by pressuring organizations to spend all of their budgets? 

[Paul.Gunderson]

Essentially, things all boil down to one inevitability here: action. Will you do anything to make what you propose a reality? Until something happens, I'm done with this futile argument.

Look into how banks operate, then look at how we operate. Go ask someone in the banking system if you must, since clearly you don't trust my knowledge on the subject (Economics 320: Money and Banking). Do something other than postulate or just drop it.

[Abram.Jackson.1]

hot dang guys calm down. Neither one of you is trying to insult the other.

Let me clarify my position, as I was the one that brought this topic up.

There has been a lot of questioning this year on why the Finance Commission does things the way they do, and C. Gunderson has answered them all.

That's not to say that I definitively agree with all his answers. Senator Raguse and some of the other senators have indicated that they think it is un-good to have a large amount in our Reserve Fund. I don't have a problem with this directly; my problem is that it seems to me that we aren't spending our money very well. I think this is what the other Senators mean. Every person in Student Government wants to spend the money we allocate in the best way possible - although we usually disagree on how that is.

C. Gunderson and C. Brown (with the Finance Commission) made the changes this year that they believed would be the best spending of the money. I think we all agree that the money we collect should all be spent by organizations. Tier II organizations do not spend all their money. The 6-person conference rule was added (I believe) so that organizations spend more of the money they are allocated. After all, we have a fee so organizations can spend it.

My argument here is not to lower the amount that organizations can spend. My idea is another way to increase the amount that organizations can spend, by reducing the rollover and essentially giving it to the organizations that do spend it (Tier I).

If we knew for certain what Tier II orgs would spend, this would not even be an issue; we would already budgeting for precisely what they spend. Since we don't, we budget for the full amount they could spend because it is the safest.

However, if we know it is statistically probably (say, with 95% certainty) that Tier II orgs will not spend X% of the money they are allowed, it is statistically probably that we would be safe budgeting X% less. C. Gunderson gave his reasons why statistical probability is not enough. S. Nagel suggested a safety net, which in this case would only be used every 20 years.

I think C. Gunderson is right, the Reserve Fund safety net probably isn't ideal. In the long term, we would be forced to keep that X% in the Reserve Fund all the time. If we have the money sitting unused in the Reserve Fund account, it may as well be sitting unused in the Tier II budget account.

I do think this has a chance of being feasible in the short term, however. If it takes ~20 years before we need to use a fraction of our safety net (most likely to go over by only a little), we will have ideally had 20 years of more efficient spending. As C. Gunderson mentions and I agree with, long term this can't work and we'd have to go back to our current model. I believe we disagree on how long term long-term is. If we can determine that this scenario takes 200 years to play out, then we'll all be using beaver teeth as currency and downloading knowledge directly into our brain anyway.

Still, this is only one Senator's idea. There are probably others, and some might work better. Or perhaps this idea could still work with some tweaking. I'm not sure - I stopped at Econ 201 (more finance courses next year, though) - but I think it is at least worth talking about civilly.

I am not about to take action on this idea, as doing it without the proper planning is foolhardy in the extreme. I have not determined the 95% statistical likelihood, though I think we could find one (let me know if you'd like my qualifications ). This is why I brought it up and why I am discussing it: to determine feasibility.

[Paul.Gunderson]

Abram,

I would definitely agree with you, if nothing but in principle at least. I'd much rather give money to organizations who will use the money responsibly and for students' benefits.

And I also agree the currently system is far from perfect. Hopefully we'll reach the point soon where we can at least accurately predict a range of how much student organizations spend, and then more accurately predict budgeting before it happens.

I've been working on trying to come up with a system to track how much student organizations use, rather than just giving one lump-sum rollover amount to base predictions off of. However, as I probably can't even use this year's data accurately, it will definitely take some time. I guess the trick will be to make sure the system is followed in years to come to ensure we actually have data to go off in the future.

[Ryan]

Fellow Senators and Commissioners,

I was a little mis-understood.  Although the reserve is quite large and will only continue to grow, I must remark that there is only two things an activity fee is to be raised for (and I think everybody can agree with this): for sustainability or for growth.  I am to understand that the activity fee was raised for sustainability in which in the real world if sustainability is a problem the last thing to do is spend money for anything outside of what the raise was intended to keep sustainable.  Hence, using a large reserve fund for any project is unethical, at least, without serious deliberation and some time has passed to ensure we don't find ourselves in the same place making the same arguments.  One other way to look at it is we raised the fee for sustainability, so by logic there really is no other money; were sustainable and thats it.

Now that I have that out of the way, I will highly and respectably disagree that we should be forcing or helping organizations to spend all the money they are allocated.  It's their organization, they do what they want in regards to how, or if, they want to spend the money.

I think with a little American innovation and creative thinking we can find ways to get budgets to more accurately reflect how, or how much, organizations have been spending the money.  Listed above is one idea, but certainly not the last.  We have a relatively new rollover system, and will need new ideas to  deal with the discrepancies that arise.  What has been talked about above is great; the passion in the arguments have brought out the best in both sides of the potential solution.  We must continue our debates to find a solution, but if were unsure at all, we then still must continue debating.   

For future reference: I don't always agree with what I say - sometimes I say things that are only mere ideas; devils advocate if you will.