Amid ASI’s current budget boom, in which the record $8.9 million budget is up nearly 10 percent from last year, some student groups still have to fight to earn even a single dollar of grant money.

Some, like the Cooper Woodson College Enhancement Program, still cannot win the battle.

Cooper Woodson, a program focused on addressing the educational needs of African-American students at CSUS, has been denied ASI grant money twice in as many weeks — and will make another attempt at today’s ASI Board of Directors meeting.

The ASI Finance and Budget Committee, chaired by President-elect Peter Ucovich, submitted a budget to the Board at its April 23 meeting. The budget denied funding for Cooper Woodson and six other programs, including the Engineering and Computer Science Career Services program and the Science Education Equity program.

Cooper Woodson Program Coordinator Martinique Baker spoke at that meeting, stressing the importance of funding.

“All events to be funded are intended to promote and celebrate diversity on the CSUS campus,” Baker said in Cooper Woodson’s budget application. “These events will teach, motivate and encourage all who will attend.”

According to Executive Vice President Luke Wood, who has been acting as the voice of Cooper Woodson within ASI, two events rely solely on ASI funding and five other events would be impacted by a lack of grant money.

“Cooper Woodson will expand to take in 10 to 20 new members next year regardless” of financial problems, Wood said. “If ASI doesn’t help, events will be affected.”

“If ASI funds were not received it would reduce our ability to help the University live up to the commitment of promoting and upholding cultural diversity on this campus as well as promoting unity,” Baker said.

The two new events that the funding would make possible are the Franklin Planner Workshop, which would aid students in developing leadership and organization skills, and the Ethnic Fashion Show, which would educate students about other cultures and promote diversity, according to Baker’s grant application.

Ucovich called a special Finance and Budget meeting for April 28, which was attended by only one other committee member, Internal Affairs Chairman, Jordan Aquino. Ucovich does not have voting power on the committee, so Aquino was the only person present that could make any changes to the budget proposal, which will be discussed and voted on at Wednesday’s Board meeting.

After debate and consideration, Aquino refused to reshape the proposal despite the submission of Cooper Woodson’s second application.

According to Ucovich, the committee rejected the first application due to technical errors within the form. Ucovich and Aquino discovered at least one error in the second application, in which Baker did not properly produce a deficit budget to show Cooper Woodson’s position if it did not receive ASI funding.

Wood did not believe the denial was just.

“You are going to take this money from Cooper Woodson based on a technicality?” Wood asked. “That’s not right.”

Former Vice President of University Affairs Calvin Davis, who also sat in on the hearing on behalf of Cooper Woodson, pointed several times to Cooper Woodson’s high retention rate.

“Cooper Woodson has the highest retention rate of any program on campus, over 90 percent,” Davis said. “If ASI wants to build retention, why won’t it fund this retention program?”

Wood also said that African-American students traditionally have the lowest retention rate on campus. According to Wood, since Cooper Woodson focuses on African-Americans, funding it should be an ASI priority.

While Aquino would not budge on his stance that the committee would be undermined should it now grant money to Cooper Woodson, Ucovich offered a potential compromise.

Ucovich’s compromise entailed taking $10,000 from the grant to be given to Cultural Affairs. The current proposal would give the Cultural Affairs program $50,000, the single biggest line item grant. Cultural Affairs received $40,000 from ASI last year.

However, Ucovich also said that he would favor that $10,000 and a small amount taken from the mandated reserve fund to be split between the three programs that resubmitted applications after errors in the first run — Cooper Woodson, ECS Career Services and Science Education Equity.

Ucovich also urged Cooper Woodson to lobby the Board to enact changes to the budget at their Wednesday meeting.

Wood, who is a non-voting member of the Board except in special circumstances, stressed the importance of getting some funding for Cooper Woodson.

“They run on a skeleton budget,” Wood said. “They count every copy they make. At ASI, people stand at the copier all day. They can’t afford that at Cooper Woodson.”

The Board of Directors will meet today at 1:30 p.m. in the University Union.

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