After an extensive debate, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate voted by a close margin last week to provide emergency funding for the Public Journal, which had not applied for enough financial support last school year.
The decision came in the midst of a protracted discussion of how liberally the Senate should allocate so-called buffer funds in the face of an unusually high level of requests for grants.
Last year, many large clubs did not submit their budgets to the Senate, so the groups have been left looking for different ways to secure funding. The Senate draws such mid-year emergency funding from its buffer funds.
When the Journal, a popular student magazine featuring anonymous student confessions, constructed its budget for this school year, it did not take into account residual debts. Therefore, it has been left with a shortage of Senate-allocated money.
At the Feb. 18 meeting, the Senate debated whether the Journal should receive buffer funding for its planned upcoming issue and an additional, smaller edition. The Senate eventually approved the financial request by a vote of 15-10, with no abstentions.
The Senate's Allocations Board (ALBO) regularly issues spending recommendations to the whole Senate, and senators then vote to provide funding for student organizations. Two types of allocations can be given out in the middle of semesters: new-group funds and buffer funds.
The buffer fund is "an emergency reserve for unforeseen and/or emergency expenditures," according to the treasury's procedures manual.
A particularly high number of student groups that require large amounts of money did not apply for funding for this school year, meaning that they have been forced to draw money from the Senate's buffer funds, according to sophomore TCU Treasurer Scott Silverman. Every year, a handful of groups makes this mistake and seeks buffer funds.
Senators regularly consider how much money is left in the buffer and new-group funds, two accounts between which money is often fluidly transferred when need be. The Senate frequently reduces allocations from those funds toward the end of the year when money dwindles.
"This year, the buffer funding is in kind of a special situation, specifically because there were a number of groups last year that didn't apply for a budget," Silverman said. "We've spent more money than [is] typically spent out of the new-group and buffer funds."
Silverman added that this year, he and former TCU Treasurer Evan Dreifuss "collectively have allowed [buffer and new-group funds] to be overspent."
Since the buffer fund is out of money, the Senate is drawing from its surplus to replenish it.
"Theoretically that fund is in the negative now, but in actuality it's not," Silverman said. "We have spent the same amount of money [overall] that we typically do from year to year."
Because the actual amounts of money left in the buffer and new-group funds are "insignificant" due to the option of drawing from the Senate's surplus, he said they have not been reported.
In order to estimate the amount of money left, senators were recently forced to base their judgments on where the funds were last year.
The Journal has already published one issue this semester. Steven Blaker, the publication's business editor, said that the Journal's request included funding for a second, smaller issue because its printer offered the group a discount.
"We went in for buffer funding for this issue, because we do have the discount and we felt we had enough material for two issues," Blaker said.
The "baby Public Journal" will focus on contributors' childhood traumas and will be similar in nature to the regular Journal issues. The Journal usually publishes once or twice a semester.
The group originally submitted a request to ALBO at the Board's meeting on Feb. 11. But the publication's signatories were unable to attend the meeting and instead sent representatives, leading to miscommunications within the Journal's staff regarding the funds that remained in its account.
At the Feb. 18 Senate meeting, Blaker requested $3,055.55 for the Journal to cover the costs of both the regular issue and the smaller issue.
TCU Parliamentarian Duncan Pickard spoke in favor of funding the Public Journal's request. "My feeling is that ... the student activities fee should always be used to benefit the students and it should always be used to increase the quality of programming that goes on on this campus," he told the Daily. A portion of the student activities fee is allocated for the buffer fund.
"I feel like the money was there," said Pickard, a sophomore. "The Public Journal is one of the most widely read publications on campus and in my opinion, if the money's there, then it should be put to good use."
But Senator Matt Shapanka, the Education Committee chair and a chair of ALBO, spoke against providing buffer funds to the Public Journal. He said that the timing of the Public Journal's request was unfavorable.
"The problem is, it's kind of a catch-22," the junior said. "Sometimes I do think the buffer fund could be used for opportunities, because [the Journal] had an opportunity ... to get a second issue cheaper," he said. "But at the end of the day, it's near the end of the semester and there's only so much funding to go around."
The Senate also debated whether to penalize the Journal for running into a deficit last school year. Under TCU Treasury policy, student groups that fall into deficits can face fines.
Shapanka said that the Journal's deficit should have been considered, despite the fact that the group had changed its leadership since it incurred the deficit.
"We have procedures, and it's unfortunate when leadership changes and groups in subsequent years suffer," he said. "But it's certainly something for which you have to follow procedures [and] that should give groups an incentive to be responsible."
Pickard disagreed with Shapanka, arguing for a more lenient approach in such cases.
"I always struggle with deficit penalties," he said. "I don't think that student groups should be punished for the mistakes of a few individuals who are no longer students at Tufts. I don't think the students who are involved with the Public Journal or the students who enjoy reading the Public Journal should be punished for mistakes made last year."
The Senate eventually decided not to punish the Journal.
Elien Becque, editor-in-chief of the Public Journal, said that the publication was satisfied with the outcome of the Feb. 18 vote.
"It's heartening to see that the Senate wasn't just interested in maintaining their strict policy on cutting funding for administrative error, and they're willing to fund publications that are evidenced as being popular on campus," she said.
