Senate revises budget referendum

The revised referendum poses two questions. The first asks students whether they would like to reallocate the $60,000 fall social budget and any leftover spring social funds either to Annual Giving or to the Pace Center, which oversees several student-initiated service projects, or not at all.

The second question offers students the same choices for reallocating $20,000 of the roughly $27,000 Senate Pilot Projects budget, which includes funding for study breaks and Dean’s Date giveaways.

The referendum ballot will allow students to rank their preferences for the use of each fund separately.

“From the beginning, this has all been about choice,” USG president Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 said in an e-mail to The Daily Princetonian. “The concept of this initiative is very simple: For the first time, students can choose how their money is spent.”

Diemand-Yauman added that the “incredible dialogue” among students about the referendum played a major role in the USG’s decision to revise its initiative. He explained that many students criticized the reallocation of the funds and questioned the usefulness of the Senate Pilot Programs budget.

“Losing $20,000 out of the fall budget will be a real challenge for the USG but we are more than willing to make that sacrifice if that is what the students want,” Diemand-Yauman said, adding that the proposed reallocations would not affect USG funding for student groups from the Projects Board.

According to the USG constitution, at least one-sixth of regularly enrolled undergraduates must vote in the majority for the referendum to pass. It is unclear how the ranking system for the revised referendum will allow officials to determine what constitutes a majority.

The USG cooperated with the Pace Center in creating the new referendum, Diemand-Yauman explained.

“We’re touched by the inclusion of service projects in the referendum as an expression of support for the Princeton students who participate in our programs and for those they serve in the wider community,” Pace Center Communications Manager Catherine Kerr said in an e-mail.

Any money allocated to events coordinated by the Pace Center would also support student service projects through Community House and the Student Volunteers Council (SVC), Kerr added.

“We would like to be able to maintain our capacity to help Princeton students participate in helping others, especially those facing increased challenges due to the economic downturn,” she said.

Diemand-Yauman said he hoped the changes to the referendum would assuage student concerns about the initiative.

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“From the beginning, the purpose of this referendum has been to give students the opportunity to exercise choice in these unique and uncertain times and to play an active role in these discussions,” he said in an e-mail to the student body. “I hope that these changes will give everyone more flexibility to make a decision that resonates with this purpose.”

Though the USG could vote to unilaterally reallocate the funds, Diemand-Yauman stressed that it would not do so.

“I believe that these economic times warrant a reevaluation of the use of the USG’s budget, and I believe that choice should be in the hands of undergraduates, not the USG,” he explained.

At a forum held to discuss the referendum Wednesday night, students expressed concerns about the potential cancellation of the fall USG Lawnparties concert.

“I feel really strongly about the USG having a presence at Lawnparties, because it represents students along all affiliations, students who drink and don’t drink, and it’s an important event on a very divided campus,” USG Projects Board co-chair Kelley Taylor ’11 said.

Diemand-Yauman noted that there will be alternative social events to the fall USG Lawnparties concert.

“At the time of Lawnparties, we will have Campus Club, which I’m certain will have events of their own,” he explained. “We’re not going to ‘leave them out to dry.’ ”

Provost Christopher Eisgruber ’83 noted that allocating the funds to Annual Giving could have a broad impact.

“I’m confident that it would inspire alumni to donate more,” he said. “They’ll see that students are doing something extraordinary in unordinary times, so they’ll do something unordinary too and contribute more.”

For the full text of the USG referendum, please click here.