College Council Meeting
April 23rd, 2008
Minutes

I. SGFC Recommendation
A. Motion to approve recommendations: (15-0,0) PASSED

II. Sharlene Holly on the 08-09 Student Activities Fee
A. Overview
1. 2008-2009 fee will be $70/quarter for undergrads, $47/quarter for grads
2. 100% of the undergrad fee goes to central funding
3. 48% of grad fees will go to divisions, 52% to central funding
B. Discussion
1. What sort of data is behind claim that grad students don’t access central student activities as much as undergrads?
-all anecdotal, though participation is growing
2. Does the SAF increase every year?
-yes, because of inflation and increased activities
3. Maybe the grad student fee should be reduced instead of just putting the money back in the divisions
-scholarships often do not cover fees
4. What about the possibility of a big speakers fund? Could we put more of the grad student fee in central funding for speakers?
5. Inflation is at 3-4%, higher for food – the fee has to increase just to keep up with costs
C. Questions to Consider
1. Centralized funding vs. dividing by group type (ie separate funding process for publications, cultural groups)
2. Central SG or divided by undergrad/grad?
3. Concrete data on grad student participation?
4. Graduate-only funding body?
5. Where should ‘new’ fee money be allocated?
6. Thoughts on the Uncommon Fund, big speakers fund, other new bodies?
D. Comments
1. Separate funding bodies would just complicate things more
2. SG needs to make sure people are aware of the current system – for example, grad students might not know they can go to SGFC
3. A GCFC would have unused money, at the cost of undergrad groups
4. How would you then determine who can attend funded events? It would create even more of a rift between grads/undergrads
5. The benefit of the current system is that all student groups have equal access to central funding; though it is somewhat cumbersome, subdivisions would only further reduce flexibility
6. The silo model would also discourage collaboration between RSOs
7. Finding people to sit on more committees would probably also be difficult
8. Speakers can be a waste of money – extremely expensive for a very brief event that may be the same speech given elsewhere
9. Grad Council & Slate have their own budget, but College Council doesn’t – maybe there should be money allocated to CC for projects also
-do we do a lot of our own programming, or just assist others?
-it would just be creating yet another funding body
10. Maybe we should change the name of the Uncommon Fund, which might have deterred some applicants this year
-continual name changing might cause confusion though
E. Comments on central fee budgeting
1. CAT funding is stretched very thin, could use more funding
-Model UN, Mock Trial, Debate, Quiz Bowl, Chess
-will they be able to get endowments as they’re trying to?
2. $7000 discretionary fee for CC
-would need to create an itemized budget first
3. How much money should be put into the Uncommon Fund, since there probably won’t be an extra $20,000 from ORCSA?
-it’s probably going to be even more competitive next year, so decreasing the funding amount wouldn’t be a good idea, but increasing at the cost of RSO funding isn’t good either
4. More money to Annual Allocations is always good
5. Perhaps we should have a speakers fund instead of the Uncommon Fund
6. Is summer SGFC a good use of money?
-a few events do happen over the summer, but often money goes to things that happen at the very beginning of the academic year
7. Recommended increases:
-10% for Annual Allocations/SGFC
-10% for CAT
-5% or 8-9% for CSF
-0% for GC
-10% or 0% for PCC
-$10,000 for Sport Clubs
-10% or 5% for student org resource support,
-10% for SG administration
-$10,000 for New Initiatives/Uncommon Fund

III. Announcements
1. College Council will be talking to retail committee, registrar, sustainability coordinator
2. CORSO is working on RSO awards, please join the judging committee if interested
3. Metra lobbying trip on May 7th, 7am to 10pm, let Jarrod know ASAP
4. New health insurance provider for next year: United Health
-switching to a co-pay system