I am tired of the most wasteful government body I know spending my money.
No, I'm not talking about the federal government, but rather our own Student Government.
Most of my friends love free student printing, Student Nighttime Auxiliary Patrol and pizza at student organization meetings, which are all funded by SG. Unfortunately, that Hungry Howie's pizza slice is likely the most expensive you have ever eaten.
Student Government is funded by Activity and Service fees collected by the university and then distributed to SG. Assuming a 30 credit-hour year, the average UF student pays $436.50 annually to fund the activities of SG.
This figure doesn't even include fees for technology, health care, transportation, financial aid (yes, there's a fee for that) and other categories for a total of $1,160.40 annually, based on a 30 credit-hour year.
SG also allocates millions of dollars to our student-funded organizations to further student life. However, it also imposes regulations on officers of these organizations so nightmarish that it doesn't make sense to accept SG fees unless a group's budget is at least thousands of dollars. Furthermore, if officers don't spend their budgeted money on something, they are guaranteed to lose it for the next year. There are no cost-control mechanisms to help keep student fees under control.
Student organizations have the incentive to spend money on anything, including sunglasses, ping-pong balls and shirts, just so they can keep their budget growing.
Both parties in this SG election cycle show why the only way to change Student Government is to abolish it and return the money they waste to students. The Unite Party and the Students Party want to keep Library West open longer, which is helpful during exam week, but is it necessary during the entire year?
One of the parties wants to install water bottle fillers on water fountains (like the ones at the Reitz Union) all across campus. Instead of tilting a water bottle slightly to the side, they think we should spend money to stand them up straight. That sounds like a great idea, and I think the members of the party that proposed it should pay for it out of their own pockets.
In addition to all the services SG spends money on, we have to spend to maintain SG itself. The Student Body president, vice president and treasurer make thousands of dollars a year in salaries. They also receive BlackBerrys and phone plans to talk to each other about Student Government business. Without SG, meeting space on the third floor of the Reitz Union would open up for student organizations, not to mention the end of Alligator stories about another useless Student Senate meeting.
Instead of having SG candidates put up a whiteboard in Turlington Plaza asking how we should spend the Activity and Service budget of $16.7 million, why shouldn't the Student Body get to figure that out individually?
Accent Speakers' Bureau routinely spends tens of thousands of dollars per speaker bringing in random actors from some HBO or MTV series nobody watches. Student Government Productions is sometimes successful in bringing in cool bands, but it also it also wastes thousands of dollars. Why should the entire Student Body pay for a band to come to UF that only a small group wants to see?
Apparently our Student Government saved us $25,000 by getting students to vote on electronic rather than paper ballots in its upcoming election. I think that's a great start, but we could save as much as $16.7 million if we didn't have to vote at all.
Travis Hornsby is a statistics and economics senior at UF. His column appears on Mondays.
