By Angela Schmitz

Each year, clubs on campus submit their budgets to the Co-Funding Board (CFB) to acquire funds for the school year.

This time, the CFB cut each club’s funding by 38%, CFB co-chair Heath Stoll said.

Stoll and CFB co-chair Chris Beckstrand met with the rest of the CFB earlier in the month to allocate funds to clubs on both campuses.

Every club on campus is funded by the CFB, which gets its money from the student activities fee.

This year, the Board had $368,504.02 to split between the multiple clubs on campus. The Joint Events council automatically gets 38.5% of that money, and they also must set aside 10% of their funding for spontaneous requests throughout the year. The rest is distributed to all other clubs.

To determine how much each club gets, the CFB looked at each club’s mission statement, and allocated money according to what their statement was.

“They’re bound by their mission statement, ” said Stoll. “We took out everything we didn’t see fit. ”

The CFB saw requests ranging from $50 to $35,000.

“Everyone has an equal shot at getting the money we have, ” said Beckstrand.

Stoll and Beckstrand said the reason for the significant cuts this year was due to new clubs. The Joint Club Board (JCB) has approved four new clubs for the year: the CSB/SJU Fishing Chapter, Magic the Gathering Club, Pre-Optometry Club, and the SJU Footie Club. Two other clubs, the CSB Club Volleyball team and a Medieval Fighting Club, are still pending approval.

JCB co-chair Heather Cederholm said that limiting the number of clubs would not change the situation.

“Clubs that are new this year will be able to apply for spontaneous funds, ” she said. “Limiting the number of club applications and approvals that the JCB considers would not help alleviate the money-crunch clubs may experience. ”

Club leaders said they are feeling the pressure from the funding cuts.

“We were allocated half of what we have received in prior years even though we have a history of accomplishing strong events with the funding we were given, ” said Katie Kottenbrock, co-chair of Campus Groove Recordings.

Her club requested $15,000, and only received $7,000.

This puts limits on the plans they had for the year. Kottenbrock said that they planned on having a fundraiser featuring the Johnny Holms Band for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, but now they lack the funds to follow through on it.

The College Democrats were also cut a significant amount.

“We were not allocated $2,277.35 (which) we believe to have been (a) legitimate request, ” said the group’s media director Zach Shaheen. “We feel that our budget was frugal and well thought-out, coinciding with our club’s mission. ”

Students in Free Enterprise leader Abby Stahl said her group only received half of what they requested.

“It’s hard to get a group of students to think big with our projects if we don’t have big money, ” she said.

College Republicans President Dave Goblirsch said that his group plans on having speakers come to campus and will be co-sponsoring election week with the College Democrats.

“We have to be creative with what we have, ” he said.

Tom Connelly, president of the newly accepted CSB/SJU Fishing Chapter, said it’s hard to see funds get cut, but it’s important for new clubs to get accepted as well.

Beckstrand and Stoll said that the CFB will be holding a meeting over trouble shooting spots and to “work out the kinks. ”

“You can’t find a process that works perfectly, ” said Stoll.

Filed under: News by Justin Roth