By: Victoria Mejicanos, Aug. 27, 2024
Several advisers were notified via email last spring that the Instructionally Related Activities committee was deliberating budget requests for the 2024-2025 fiscal year with an important caveat: “Funding next year will be considerably lower than the last couple of years. The funding that accrued during the pandemic when activities could not function is mostly used up,” wrote Angelica Rosas, the club services finance manager.
IRA-funded activities are out-of-class activities that are connected to a program and are an extension of classroom experiences with direct faculty involvement with the program. Examples include the Cal Poly Rose Float, Dia De Los Muertos and Baja SAE.
Data reviewed by The Poly Post demonstrates that the average budget cut received by IRA funded organizations was 50%.
Associate professor Marc Scarcelli, who advises Cal Poly Pomona’s Model UN team, experienced a budget cut in previous years but was surprised at the amount cut this year.
“Based on my past experiences, I thought OK, 10%, maybe 15% cut, but a 45% cut is not something that I was expecting,” Scarcelli said.
During previous budget cuts, Scarcelli compensated by reducing the group of students that competed from 20 to 18.
Post-pandemic, the Model UN team, like many organizations, received a boost in funding due to a lack of in-person student activities, which allowed the team to head to an international conference in the fall and the usual New York conference they attend in the spring.
This year, the situation is much different. According to Scarcelli, this cut means no second conference and may mean the shrinking of the team so the team can afford to go to New York.
“I would be forced to further reduce the number of students who get this opportunity,” said Scarcelli.
Scarcelli shared that his “only hope” for keeping the team size the same is support from alumni who periodically donate to the team to show their support. Since the team has been active since the 1970s, Scarcelli said there are generations of alumni who can help.
Although Scarcelli believes shrinking the size of the team won’t affect its success, he expressed disappointment that more students will not get to experience the program.
“What’s more heartbreaking in a way is so many students very much want this experience,” said Scarcelli. “It’s such a positive experience for some students; it’s downright life changing. At a minimum, it’s a tremendous career boost to anyone.”
Lisa Rotunni, co-chair of the IRA Committee with the ASI president, shared the difficulty of deciding to make these cuts.
“It was a difficult year for the committee to make decisions because the people looking at these don’t want to reduce anyone’s budget. We would if we could give everyone what they asked for,” said Rotunni.
She also shared that most of the time, they cannot give groups exactly what they ask for.
“We have sometimes been able to give all the groups at least what they had in the year before,” she said.
Rotunni explained the funds for IRA groups come from a fee that students pay that has not changed since 1996. It is currently $20 per semester.
“It’s not easy to change because it would require a referendum of the entire student body and therefore the budget is constrained,” she said. “If the whole student body wanted to have more funds in this pool, and there was a movement in that direction to raise the fee, then that would make more funds available to those groups.”
Rotunni explained each activity approved to receive IRA funding submits a budget request for the year, with information describing a narrative about the activity, what its goals are, what its learning outcomes are, who participates in the activity as well as a description of costs and detailed spending budget. These requests are all reviewed by at least three committee members and scored based on a rubric.
Based on the scores given to the activities, they are placed in tiers that determine what percentage of the budget can be given, with one being the highest and three being the lowest. She explained that the higher the tier is, the higher percentage of the budget clubs will receive.
According to Rotunni, when placing groups into tiers, the committee is looking for what kind of benefits the program could provide to students.
The CPP Horse Show Team as well as the Livestock Show Team also experienced a 45% budget cut.
Amber Freeland, who co-advises the Horse Show Team and the Livestock Show Team, said “The budget constraints have been very stressful.”
She explained that she has been able to increase the enrollment as well as the budget for the Horse Show Team every year since 2019.
To cope with the loss of funds, Freeland says that both teams will have new fees.
“There have been some really major issues, and you know it is a concern because I really work hard to make things as affordable as possible or try to subsidize as many costs as we can with those ASI budgets that we get,” Freeland said. “So yeah, it’s very stressful it’s going to be a tough year for both of those teams.”
For the Horse Show Team, there will now be a charge for lesson fees, and both teams will now have to pay membership costs, which is a first for the Livestock Show Team.
Freeland also anticipates the issue to only get worse over the next couple of years due to the economic recession.
Photos and chart courtesy of Victoria Mejicanos