The Justice

Media Credit: Scott Koenig/the Justice

Brandeis Television (BTV) has put forth an amendment to the Student Union Constitution in a push to gain Secure Allocated Fund (SAF) status. BTV, the 24-hour cable television network available only on the Brandeis campus, hopes to be allocated 2.81 percent of SAF funds, totaling approximately $22,500 per academic year.

Unlike Union Chartered Organizations, SAF Organizations do not rely on the Allocations Board for funding. Instead, they are automatically guaranteed a certain percentage of the Students Activities Fee. Current SAF Organizations and their respective percentages of the activities fee are: The Student Union Government (47.34), Student Events (22.47), WBRS (8.97), Archon (8.35), the Justice (6.08), BEMCo (3.14) and the Watch (1.87).

BTV proposes slashing Archon funding by 11 percent and eliminating funding for the Watch, which is currently on hiatus. This would result in Archon receiving 7.5 percent of SAF funds or $60,000 -- down $6,800 from their current draw. The Watch has plans to voluntarily withdraw from SAF and join the Brandeis Media Coalition.

BTV station manager Nate Westheimer '05 said that in crafting the amendment BTV looked toward the major media fund grouping in the upcoming financial review, which separates the Justice and WBRS from the other five, currently-SAF groups. "We wanted to see what the students felt was an appropriate amount of their tuition money for a campus media organization," Westheimer said. BTV chose to request approximately one-third of what these two organizations currently receive.

The financial review was initially slated for last semester, but Union President Benjamin Brandzel says the changes, which are required by the current Union constitution, should be complete this semester.

Westheimer added that BTV wants to do as little as possible to disrupt the current SAF system, saying he expects that the Union will review BTV's progress in three years time to determine if another SAF adjustment would be necessary. Asked about the one-third figure, Westheimer explained, "we would like to first see how close we can get (with this amount of SAF funding) to that optimal rate of production and entertainment and service to the community" before requesting more.

WBRS did not comment on the record about BTV's proposed amendment. This year, BTV relaunched itself as a 24 hour cable channel, in part thanks to equipment grants from the Division of Student Life. "We have three major components ... movies, original programming and community programming," BTV President Avi Kaufman '03, said.

Continued...

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