The leaders of several clubs on campus say that Associated Students Inc. has not been up front about its policies for funding club events.

“The amount of money that we’re being told we have available apparently doesn’t exist,” said Japan Club President Brian Berry, a senior Asian studies and Japanese double major.

The Japan Club hosted a Halloween event on Oct. 26 in the University Union. They planned on renting out the Redwood Room, showing a film and providing snacks. They requested $229.90, but were only granted $150 by ASI, said Tiffany Huang, ASI vice president of finance.

Huang said the way ASI distributes money to clubs is necessary to ensure that clubs can be funded fairly throughout the entire year.

ASI has $119,100 for Dollars for Organizations and Clubs (DOC) funding to split among the clubs on campus, Huang said.

“Each club is eligible for $1,500 per academic year,” Huang said. “The eligibility is there, but the guarantee of funding is not.”

Huang explained that ASI cannot guarantee every club will be fully funded because there is not enough DOC funding to go around.

“We divide the pot over however many meetings we have and that’s how much we have available for each meeting,” Huang said.

During the meeting on Oct. 16, when the Japan club requested funding for its event, 17 clubs made requests for funding.

“Over $36,797 was requested, and we only had $9,764.68 available,” Huang said, “It just doesn’t work out. We have to be fair to every group.”

The Japan club was able to deal with this shortfall by using funds it had left over from last year. It still had to cut down the amount of supplies used, and were able to scrape by without affecting the quality of the event, Berry said.

Other clubs have not been as lucky. The Art History Club planned a trip to three Bay Area art museums on Dec. 3, and planned on using a bus to transport students there.

“We were told flat out that we wouldn’t get $700 for a bus,” said Teresa Whitney, Sac State senior and president of the Art History Club.

“We had to change it to a carpool trip,” Whitney said. “Now 10 students are going instead of 50 or 60.”

Whitney said the Art History Club was told that ASI’s funding had been drained, and although she said the reasons their funding was denied makes sense, it is unfair.

“The unfair part is telling clubs they have up to $1,500 available,” Whitney said. “We believe you can get $1,500 or even $2,000 for funding, but you can’t.”

Some clubs rely on other sources altogether for their funding.

“We’ve never had to worry about money,” said Johanna Joy Garcia, president of Epsilon Phi, Sac State’s Communication Studies honor club. She explained that their club’s funding comes directly from the Communication Studies department.

“I can do everything through the Comms department,” Garcia said. “We’ve had problems with ASI and Student Activities cooperating with us.”

Garcia said their club requested a room for a recent event, but never heard a response from ASI.

“We really wanted a room, and no one (from ASI) got back to me, so we just went through the Comms department again,” Garcia said.

Berry said the Japan club still has not received this money. Its request for funding was approved, but it have not received the money yet because DOC funds are distributed on a basis of reimbursement.

Whitney said this is an unfair way to fund clubs because new clubs will not have the funds to pay for events before they are reimbursed.

“There’s no system in place to promote the development of new organizations and clubs on campus,” Whitney said.

Another regulation Sac State places upon clubs is only Pepsi-brand drinks can be served at club events. This rule is campus-wide and is not put in place by ASI.

Berry said the Japan club is planning a social event with free food and drinks, and this rule poses a problem for them.

“We are the Japan club, so we intend to serve Japanese tea, but do not want to be forced to use Pepsi Lipton tea,” Berry said in an e-mail.

“The school has a contract that says we can only serve Pepsi for any kind of event that requires a beverage,” said Lou Camera, director of Student Activities, “But if there’s a reason for special consideration, we can get an exemption. Making tea would not fall under that.”

Cody Kitaura can be reached at [email protected]