By Brittany Burke
After much debate and two separate motions, the CCSU ice hockey club was denied its contingency request of $5,000 for unforeseen costs by the Student Government Association with nine votes for and 16 against.
“This club definitely doesn’t have what they need to operate,” said Senator Eric Bergenn. “A point that I’ve made in the past for contingencies is for clubs to raise 10 percent of that contingency money and while we don’t hold any other club to it and they actually are paying for 800 percent of what they are asking for.
“So in terms of sticking by any sort of standard for ourselves I think we need to pass. I understand that we’re in a difficult position and we don’t have a lot of money and we have to really start making some tough choices and say no to people that seemingly deserve money but this is free money, it’s for them, it’s all the student’s money. I think they’re representing us in a national way that most other clubs on campus don’t do,” said Bergenn.
At the end of last semester the CCSU hockey team submitted a request to the SGA for a contingency of $5,000, which is in addition to the club’s initial SGA budget of $5,000. As the final meeting came to an end the request was put on the back burner for the spring semester.
Senator Ashley Foy made a motion for the team’s contingency to be made specifically for rink fees. The amendment was passed and the SGA senators argued whether or not new request fell under the guidelines for an allocated contingency.
While the hockey team is facing $10,000 in unforeseen costs, $8,000 in referee fees and $2,000 for a trainer for visiting teams, the majority of the senators felt as if these costs did not fall under the amended request.
The hockey team’s budget ranked second in top 15 SGA budgets in the 2009-2010 academic year. This year, due to budget cuts the team dropped to number 37 on the list of SGA budgets.
“I was there for the original budget request and when the budget request went through there was a decision made that we basically had a little over 100 and so many thousands of dollars to give out and we felt that it was fair to give them 5,000 because we had to cut every other budget that came through,” said Senator Erika Dawson-Head.
“There’s only so much in the pot and it wasn’t fair that they were getting most of the money every single year for the last few years so the reason was that we wanted all of the clubs to be allowed to have some sort of money in their budget this upcoming year.”
The SGA currently has an estimated $30,000 in funding to disperse according to SGA treasurer Asia Smith. However, during the debate she urged the senators to think wisely because $30,000 isn’t a lot of money given the amount of requests the SGA faces each semester.
The original motion for the hockey team to be allocated $5,000 for rink fees was denied with nine yes votes and 16 no votes, however it was then motioned that the team be granted the same amount flat, meaning it would not have to go to any specific purpose.
The new motion did not hold up against the senators who still felt the contingency an unnecessary cost.
“I understand that it’s an expensive sport and there are a lot of expensive things out there but it doesn’t fall on the SGA to have to fund an activity to its fullest even if it’s say ten times more expensive than a normal club…it is something we’ve already funded, we didn’t deny but we already did give them money so it’s not something I would consider unforeseen. They’re just trying to get something more out of the same title,” Senator Ben Haase of the initial motion.
The hockey club currently has $110 left of its SGA budget received at the start of the fall semester. The club has been able to fundraise, acquire donations and switch rinks to lower costs, while paying $1,500 in dues upfront. The donations and money raised, however, is not enough to alleviate the cost of $62,110.10.
“I know we can’t compare this to our other allocations in the previous semester but if we’re talking about a lot of other clubs asking for contingency and not raising 10 percent of everything and kind of just taking the money, you can see the amount of fundraising the hockey team does,” said Senator Ryan Baldassario. “They may not be as active on campus as we necessarily want them to be but they work for what they have and they have a large budget because unfortunately enough for their sport it requires a large budget and they do a lot of work fundraising like Ashley [Foy] said they’re not only getting the money from us and are like ‘Oh whatever,’ they’re working as hard as they can to get this type of money and I feel like with the amount of effort they deserve to be given at least a little bit more money.”
It was ultimately decided that the hockey team was not in need of the additional $5,000 and the contingency request for the rest of the academic year was denied.
