On Friday October 4, The Student Government Association Finance Committee met to approve budgets for student run organizations. They approved twenty-five budgets for organization-sponsored events in the spring semester, as well as the print budget for the fall edition of Alinea,Pace’s literary journal, and the meeting budget for the Lubin Business Association. The events that received approval included advocacy and awareness walks, movie nights, trips to the city, and opportunities to enjoy good food with good company. Be sure to keep an eye out for further details on these events and more come spring.

The Committee also approved proposals that will reform and hopefully improve the way financial decisions such as these are made. As it stands, organization and event budgets are approved by the Financial Committee, a collection of treasurers from Pace’s organizations. They gather to present their budget proposals to one another and submit them to a vote. However, this method is suffering due to low and inconsistent attendance from the treasurers. There have also been cases of treasurers allowing personal interests to sway the way they vote. The solution proposed at the October 4^thmeeting would appoint a new Financial Review Panel consisting of eight students who are not treasurers to review and vote on anonymous budget proposals. If a proposal is denied, students will be allowed to appeal their case. It is hoped that this will offer an efficient and nonbiased method for approving budgets.

The Committee also voted to revise the way organizations can access the Pleasantville Project Fund, an alternative source of money for organizations at Pace that has a lot of available resources but frequently goes overlooked. As it currently stands, the process for obtaining money from the Pleasantville Project Fund is tedious and time consuming, which discourages students from applying. The proposal set forth at the October 4^thmeeting details a new, simpler method, in which students who wish to access these funds will submit the details of their project to the Executive Vice President and the Vice President of Finance. From there, the Executive VP and the VP will review the submissions, remove the names of the students who offered them, and submit them to the Judicial Board- a branch of the SGA that ensures that organizations meet set standards- for an anonymous vote. Once again, if a proposal is denied, students will have a chance to appeal their case to the Board. The goal of this proposal is to make funds more readily available to student organizations.

While both initiatives passed through the Financial Committee, they still must pass through the Student Senate in order to become active practices here at Pace. If that should happen, the Pleasantville Project Fund Proposal will take effect immediately, and the Financial Review Panel Proposal will start out with an interim period to test its success rate. The new procedures will be implemented at the next monthly Finance Meeting.