High Financial Waves Might Drown PBH

A dwindling Faculty subsidy and a Buildings and Grounds budget cut signify troubled water ahead for Phillips Brooks House (PBH)-Harvard's undergraduate social service organization.

By 1973, the phase-out of a $20,000 Faculty subsidy and a $20,000 phased cutback in maintenance costs of the PBH building will cripple and possibly kill many of the dozen PBH programs, such as the Challenge Program, Prisons Committee, and Mental Hospitals Committee.

To prevent the drowning, two PBH committees met yesterday and discussed ways to alleviate PBH's financial woes. The Faculty Committee of PBH and the PBH Cabinet, which consists of the student officers and heads of each PBH program, met separately in two-hour closed sessions.

Rev. Charles P. Price, chairman of the PBH Faculty Committee, said yesterday that the Faculty Committee might ask Dean Dunlop for a Faculty subsidy of $17,700 to help pay the four regular salaried PBH employees, the (Harvard) graduate secretary, a full time secretary, part time secretary, and bookkeeper.

PBH has received an annual $20,000 Faculty subsidy since 1967-68. But under present plans, this grant is being phased out.

When the Faculty first voted PBH an emergency subsidy of $20,000 in 1967-68, PBH agreed to concentrate more forcefully on raising money from alumni, thus eliminating the need for the grant.

But alumni donations did not meet expectations and the dean of the Faculty renewed the $20,000 subsidy for 1968-69 and 1969-70. In April, 1969, Dean Ford, Dunlop's predecessor, stated that be would reduce the subsidy by increments of $5000, starting in 1970-71, and would end the grant after June 1973.

The members of PBH, faced with continuing financial pressure, asked Dunlop last March for a permanent grant. He referred the issue to the Committee on Students and Community Relations (CSCR) which, after a lengthy subcommittee investigation, last month voted unanimously to deny PBH a permanent subsidy.

The CSCR did recommend a subsidy of at least $10,000 for PBH in 1971-72-the same amount which Dean Ford had guaranteed PBH. Robert Smith 71, vice president of PBH, called last month's CSCR decision "garbage giftwrapped."

Not only is the PBH subsidy fizzling out, but scheduled Buildings and Grounds maintenance cutbacks will force PBH to close on weekends and eliminate its evening hours.

BandG men, who now work there as superintendents 100 hours per week, will be transferred, starting in June,so that by 1973 only one man will carry out "cleaning duties" there 25 hours per week.

Christopher Hoy '71, president of PBH, said that keeping PBH open at night and on weekends is vital for many programs. Barry O'Connell, graduate secretary of PBH, said, "Closing the building at 5 p.m. would ?? tantamount to closing most of what goes on in the House."

The Corporation decided on this BandG cutback after L. Gard Wiggins, administrative vice president, recommended it last year. PBH appealed the decision to the Corporation, 'which appointed R. Keith Kane '22, then a member of the Corporation, to review PBH's appeal.

Kane retired in June 1970 and apparently forgot to make a ruling on the case.