Not Taking Party Grants for Granted

The Harvard Undergraduate Council passed legislation yesterday to tighten oversight of its party fund.

Effective immediately, all grants distributed by the UC will be audited by its Finance Committee. Currently, only 20 percent of the 13 grants handed out every weekend are checked against receipts.

The UC allocates nine $100 regular party grants and four $200 “super-party” grants each week.

The legislation comes in response to increased criticism of the UC’s party fund and worry within the UC that grants are being misused.

Earlier this month, students who showed up at a Cabot House room expecting a UC-funded party were surprised to find an empty suite, despite the fact that a $100 party grant had been allocated to the room.

“I think that the Cabot House issue certainly got more people thinking about the party fund and accountability,” said UC Treasurer Ben W. Milder ’08.

“It was an extreme case of trying to cheat the system,” he added.

The new legislation will make receipt submission mandatory and will institute a rotating visiting system whereby UC members will check up on all parties receiving grants.

Also at yesterday’s meeting, UC reps voted to include a referendum on greenhouse gas emissions on next month’s UC presidential ballot.

The proposal would call upon Harvard to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 11 percent from its 1990 levels by 2020.

The ballot question will also ask students to pledge “to do [their] part to realize these reductions” while at Harvard.

The legislation, sponsored by Lowell House Rep. Ali A. Zaidi ’08, Eliot House Rep. Tom Hadfield ’08, and the Harvard Environmental Action Committee, passed unanimously.

The referendum will take place during presidential elections, which will be held Dec. 4 through the 7th.

Also yesterday, UC President John S. Haddock ’07 and Student Affairs Committee Chair Ryan A. Petersen ’08 headed a resolution recommending that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Computer Services install two-sided printing in Houses, dorms, and other College facilities as an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective measure.

Currently, only the Science Center computer lab offers double-sided printing.

The initiative, which passed unanimously, was part of the UC’s Hidden Cost Campaign, which seeks to address unnecessary small costs imposed on students and student groups.

A TAXING AFTERNOON

Several members of the UC and other student leaders met Friday with interim Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles to urge the repeal of the student group gift tax, which the Faculty of Arts and Sciences plans to raise in the coming months. The tax will go up from five percent this year to 15 percent in three years.

The UC has said that the higher tax on the accounts, which allow student groups to collect tax-deductible donations, would hurt new student groups establishing their financial footing.

According to people who were at the meeting, Knowles said that though he sympathizes with the UC’s arguments, the UC needs to take up the issue with Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71.

“I think that student group leaders felt that the FAS dean was not taking full responsibility for the tax being imposed,” said Petersen after the meeting.