Student Council Bylaws

Article VIII: Student Council Funding Committee and Policy

Section 1: The Student Council Funding Committee has been established for the purpose of distributing the money at the Council's disposal in accordance with the goals of the Council (see Preamble). The Committee shall decide what guidelines it will follow except where outlined below.

Section 2: Each student shall be assessed a student activities fee annually to be collected by the Bursar at the beginning of each academic year. This money shall be distributed in accordance with the Council Bylaws.

Section 3: The Funding Committee shall have a membership consisting of the entire Student Council membership. The Committee shall meet once at the beginning of the fall semester and once at the beginning of the spring semester. All clubs present at the fall meeting; all clubs new that year will present again for funds at the spring meeting, along with all clubs new that spring. Clubs may not solicit funds outside of the 2 designated funding meetings held each year.

Section 4: The Committee shall receive for review applications for funding from the following sources:
A: Any Tufts medical student as an individual.
B: Any active in-house (i.e. Tufts-based) Organization.
C: Any active national organization having a duly recognized
chapter at Tufts.

Section 5: The Committee may decide in what form-said applications must be submitted. Failure to follow those guidelines shall be grounds for the Committee to refuse action on said application.

Section 6: The Committee shall consider in this review of an application for funding the following:
A: Whether the goals of the Council will be fulfilled.
B: Whether other sources of funding are available for use to support
the activities of the organization seeking funding.
C: Whether the proposed budget is fair and accurate.
D: Any other factor the Committee deems appropriate to consider,
including past activities, success of the group or project, membership size and benefit to the Tufts community.

Section 7: In considering each application, the Committee shall abide by the following restrictions:
A: Applications from in-house organizations and from Tufts chapters of national organizations shall be allowed for organizational expenses and activities exclusive of travel provided that such activities are open to the student body at large. There will be a limit of six hundred dollars per year per organization for such expenses.
B: In addition, Tufts chapters of national organizations may submit applications for expenses associated with travel to that organization's national meetings or conferences (i.e. travel, hotel, and registration fee) with a limit of four hundred dollars per year per organization.
C: In accordance with the above, the maximum disbursement to any in-house organization shall be six hundred dollars. The funding for Tufts chapters of national organizations may reach a maximum of one thousand dollars, to include funding for expenditures for national conferences.
D: The Council reserves the right to award less than the maximum allowable amounts to any organization. Groups with shared Medical and Dental/Veterinary School membership will be eligible for up to 50% of their funding (within the limits set for all clubs funded by the Medical School.) Awarding of funds may be delayed until matched funds are available from the other graduate school involved.
E: The Council will allow no more than $100 of Council funding per
group to be used for speaker honoraria annually.
F: The Student Council will allocate a minimum of one thousand, five hundred dollars ($1500) annually toward the support of a project(s) or endeavor(s) originating from TUSM students, that benefits the Tufts Medical community. Activities can include, but are not limited to, community outreach, community service, research, and other scholarly pursuits. These monies may be allocated to one or divided among many applicants at the discretion of the Council. Applications shall be solicited to be reviewed at a designated meeting in the fall semester, and the recipient(s) shall be determined at that time, or at a time to be determined.
G: In the event that a Student Council member seeks to solicit Student Council funding for his/her own club, that member must excuse themselves from that portion of the funding meeting while their application for funding is reviewed.
H: Clubs may not fractionate and seek additional funding for subdivisions within their own club (e.g; designating a sub-cmte for publication of a newsletter, and seeking additional funding for said activity).

Section 8: Meetings of the committee shall be held according to the Bylaws of the council in regards to quorum and voting requirements. Individuals or representatives or organizations applying for funding shall be notified of Committee meetings at least one week before the meetings, and their presence is required for action on their application. Upon reviewing each application, the committee shall go into executive session and vote to recommend or not recommend said application for funding.

Section 9: All recipients of funds will be expected to provide the Treasurer (or his/her designate) an accounting of all the S.C. funds received. This shall be performed in the following manner:

A: Every two weeks during the spring and fall semester the Treasurer
(or his/her designate) shall review requests including the original receipts for congruity between he group/individual budget and spending.
B: The requests and receipts shall then be provisionally approved and sent to the Bursar.
C: Provisionally approved requests and receipts shall be subject to final approval by the S.C. at the following S.C. meeting. Student group treasurers/individuals are to be notified of the date and time of the S.C. meeting so they may be present to address any questions or concerns regarding their budget if they so choose.
D: In the event that a group/individual's spending is deemed to be out of keeping with the approved budget, the group's treasure/individual will be held accountable for the refunding of the amount spent tot he S.C. Should this fail to occur, S.C. may, at its discretion, undertake further action to recover these funds including, but not limited to presentation of the discrepancy to the Dean of Students.
E: Clubs must designate one individual to act as club treasurer, and this individual will be responsible for reporting all transactions directly with the SC Treasurer.

Section 10: All recipients of funds from the Council shall be such receipt of said funds be special representatives of the Council (as per article V) and therefore shall be required to report to the Council on their activities.

Section 11: The following exceptions to the above policy shall be permitted:
A: Each class shall receive a minimum of one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500) at the start of each semester, to be used by the social chairpersons.
B: The senior class shall be allowed special consideration to apply for additional funds to cover expenses associated with fourth year class activities (i.e. graduation party, yearbook).
C: The senior class shall be awarded two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) to be applied toward expenses for senior week activities.
D: The Student Council shall provide funding for the Fall Four-Class Party and for the Spring Gala. The Council shall determine the sums of the funding at the fall funding meeting. Expenses from previous years may be used to guide the Council for such funding.
E: The Council will allocate up to one hundred dollars for a gift to the graduating Student Council President. The senior class Council representatives or the Council has a whole will determine this gift.
F: Any other exception that a majority of the Council votes to allow.
G: Any unused funds left in the Council's account at the end of each academic year shall be "rolled over" and added to the available funds for the upcoming year.

Section 12: Yearbook funding: funding for the senior class yearbook shall be a maximum of 35% of the annual Student Council budget.