Have you heard of the Sports Management Club (SMC)? Apparently the Student Government Association (SGA) hasn’t either.

After being turned down in its first few attempts for funding from SGA in the fall, the group went back before the class senators and requested more. SGA was kind enough to give them money – even though it was less than what it asked for.

Did I mention that SGA is looking for ways to spend $44,000?

According to an earlier Simpsonian article and the creator of SMC, Matt Stone, the group is set in place to “sponsor athletic events with certain types of promotions.” The SMC’s goals were to encourage student turnout at athletic events, engage fans and build a support system for our college’s student-athletes.

Enter: Budget Request

When an organization fills out a budget request, it can either visit SGA directly during a meeting or fill out a budget request form. After numerous clicks to multiple links on SGA’s organization page on Simpson’s website, and multiple dead ends of “unavailable” or “unauthorized” – I found it.

At the bottom of this budget request are eight questions or statements for the group to fill out. Some include: How is your group beneficial to the Simpson campus and community, How will your funds be used to benefit the campus and community, List fundraisers that are planned and so on and so forth.

I have no idea what SMC put down for those questions. I do know that SMC didn’t get all the money it requested for the school year, which limited its abilities to meet its goals for the year. Therefore, at the time, SGA thought that SMC’s ideas or goals for the year were maybe, inadequate.

However, SGA to the rescue!

SGA decided that it would step in (or step on the toes of) SMC and sell shirts at the men’s and women’s basketball home-opener on Wednesday, Dec. 1. $2,100 was allocated for the SGA-sponsored event that would hand out 200 T-shirts to the first 200 students that showed up to support the Storm. It sounds like a great idea – and yet, also a familiar one.

SGA decided to do the job that SMC was not given the proper resources to do for itself.

How does SMC feel about this? I do not know. You would have to ask the members of SMC. However, I know how I feel about it.

I feel as though each week brings another decision from SGA that I don’t agree with. I think that the budget issues were monstrous compared to ones in the past. I think that many groups left SGA budget meetings unhappy not only because money wasn’t given to them, but also because SGA has found itself with thousands of dollars in surplus of student fees.

Do I attend SGA meetings regularly? No. Do I attend them at all? Caught me, no again. Should I go and see what the heck is going on around this place? Probably. Should students start taking an interest in how their student fees are being spent? Absolutely.