One of the Michigan Student Asembly’s primary purposes is distributing funds to student groups that need the funding. To make the process easier for student organizations to obtain this money, the assembly completely revamped its funding application at the beginning of last semester.

But so far, student groups have given the new process mixed reveiws, some contending that the process provides a vital resource for groups during hard times while others complaining that the process is still too opaque and complicated.

LSA junior Brad Snider is in the latter of the two groups. Snider, who led an Alternative Spring Break team this semester and had to request funding from MSA, said the process of obtaining funding from the assembly is still inefficient and, quite simply, “a waste of time.”

“It is very confusing. It is not clear what the different committees do or how they determine how much money they are giving you,” Snider said.

Former MSA Treasurer Lisa Averill said, however, that the process is made clear to student organizations who apply for funding.

“We pretty clearly outline our entire process for them,” she said. “And if they come to office hours or anything, we’re always willing to go over it with them in more depth.”

The funding application is made available online at the beginning of each fall and winter semester. Around this time, the chairs and vice-chairs for the Budget Priorities and Community Service Committees hold office hours and funding workshops to help student organizations apply for funding.

For many student organizations, navigating this process hasn’t been hard. It has, however, proved pivotal to the functioning of their groups, especially as traditional funding sources back out of giving because of tough economic times.

“Student sponsors are backing out at this time, but (MSA is) still providing,” said Neil Thaneder, president of Detroit Partnership.

Jordan Salin, former chair of MSA’s Budget Priorities Committee, said the assembly received very few complaints from student organizations that did not receive their desired amounts of money in his tenure.

But he added that the changes to the application have produced positive results.

“We gave out more money than in recent years,” Salin said. “There was a noticeable improvement in the quality of applications attributed to the application changes.”

According to MSA treasurer Vishal Bajaj, the Budget Priorities Committee is typically allocated between $125,000 and $130,000 each semester and the Community Service Committee is typically allocated about $45,000 each semester to provide to student groups.

Bajaj said this is considerably higher than the 40 percent of MSA’s overall funds required to go to the Budget Priorities Committee and 20 percent required to go to the Community Service Committee by MSA’s constitution and compiled code.

Despite the detailed process for fund allocation, there are student groups on campus who feel they are not given a fair shot by the MSA budget committees.

Andrew Dalack, co-chair of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a pro-Palestinian organization, said the new funding process lacks transparency, which raises many issues for him.

“It is unclear why sometimes we receive more or less money for certain events,” he said.

Dalack said he thinks the funding allotment discrepancy may have something to do with politics.

“The political opinions of the members of BPC and CSC may affect our ability to get funding,” he said, “especially if individual members of the various funding bodies fundamentally disagree with SAFE's mission and principles.”

Averill said any students whose neutrality might be compromised — for example, if they are members of certain groups — don’t provide input on that group’s funding.