I don't know which budget Unite Party member T.J. Villamil was talking about in his letter this week, but it isn't one that was passed by the Student Senate.
His letter was so full of misinformation that I have to assume it was an attempt to discredit the Students Party on an election day.
Villamil is the Student Body treasurer, so he knows Student Government is responsible for allocating the full amount of the Activity & Service Fees it receives from the university -$12.87 per credit hour, equaling roughly $16.7 million for 2011-2012. He knows this because he was chairman of the Student Senate committee that oversaw the development of this budget last year and because these numbers are printed in the "Finance for Students" packet available in the SG Finance office.
It's true that SG typically allocates the majority of its funds to RecSports and the Reitz Union. But SG makes that decision. Florida law gives SG the authority to decide how the money is spent, so only SG can allocate the A&S Fee paid by students.
Saying that SG's budget is only $4.8 million is like saying the federal government doesn't have full control over all of the tax revenue it receives.
As for his next claim: that SG doesn't use student funds to reimburse SG officials for their phone-related costs? It reimburses them not only for their phone plans but also for their phones. They're even allowed to put this money toward apps for their phones. You know, so they have the option to download, say, Angry Birds for official SG business purposes.
As a former student senator who served on the Budget and Appropriations Committee, I am very familiar with the policies surrounding student organizations that fail to spend all of their allocated funds for the year. The unspent funds are placed in SG's reserves account, which is off-limits to student organizations. And when you don't spend it, your budget is more likely to be reduced next time around.
Being the Student Body treasurer and a former budget chairman, Villamil knows all of this. So when he decides to represent himself and his office by writing a letter correcting alleged "factual errors" about the budget, he should at least show some self-dignity by making sure his response is factual. Especially on election day.
The Students Party has been nothing but honest about the numbers from the start. It's just unfortunate how many students may have been misled byWednesday's hit piece.
Alden Gillespy
Former student senator
