The Student Union government established a new task force charged with reforming club financing and the distribution of the $900,000-a-year student activities fund, as well as reviewing a wider range of Union government operations last week.The committee, which has dubbed itself AMP ("A More Perfect..."), is composed largely of Union officials as well as club leaders and Assistant Dean of Student Life Alwina Bennett. Former Union Secretary Daniel Silverman '05 and Korean Students Association President Lisa Kim '06 will share the task of chairing the committee.

Union President Mark Schlangel '05 told the Justice he impaneled the committee to respond to a "growing awareness" that the current system of doling out student activities funds is flawed.

According to Schlangel, many club leaders find the process of requesting money from the Finance Board or the Union Senate a roadblock to planning club events efficiently.

Presently, almost all of the roughly 260 student groups recognized by the Union must go before either the Finance Board or the senate to receive funding for their events. Changing the methods by which student activities funds are disbursed would mean altering the 5-year-old Union constitution, a process which requires a vote of the student body.

Last month, Silverman and Bennett gave a presentation before the senate that explored the "Why now?" question of reviewing the distribution of student activities funds. In addition to citing the age of the constitution, Silverman mentioned "areas of concern identified by several constituencies" and criticism from campus media, administrators and student organizations.

According to Silverman, when the current Union constitution was adopted, it contained a reform that dealt with the management of Union finances, but it did not take a "comprehensive look at how our structures work."

With five years worth of data, Silverman is anxious to undertake a sweeping review.

"We feel we have enough data to go forward and do the kind of review that hasn't been undertaken in maybe 20 years," Silverman told the Justice Sunday. "We think it's about time for a new approach."

Bennett, who works closely with many student organizations, is the resident administrator on the new task force. Like Schlangel and Silverman, she has heard complaints from club leaders looking for a Union grant to fund their activities.

"Volunteer Vacations went to the senate to get money," Bennett said. "While the senate gave them money, they didn't walk away feeling good about the process." (During the Feb. 1 senate meeting Volunteer Vacations requested $2,900 for a spring-break trip to Harrisburg, Pa., but received only $500.)

Bennett added that she believes that senators, too, do not feel good about the process of clubs requesting money from the senate.

Much of AMP's work will focus on the funding of the student groups known as "secured organizations."

Each academic year, as mandated in the Union constitution, seven groups-the Waltham Group, Student Events, the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps, Archon, BTV65, WBRS and the Justice-receive a guaranteed percentage of student activities funds.

The latter four groups are categorized as major media organizations, and are collectively entitled to about a quarter of the approximately $900,000 of yearly activities funds.

The other three groups also receive about a quarter of that fund, the finance board receives about 40 percent, and the Union government receives about 10 percent.

In addition to his role with the task force, Silverman is also the managing editor of The Hoot, a newspaper he founded last fall with former Justice editor Igor Pedan '05.

Silverman said that while he always found it problematic that magazines and other publications that do not have guaranteed funding must go before the senate and Finance Board, being part of a senate-chartered media organization has amplified this sentiment.

"However," he said about his dual roles of editor and committee chair, "I'm just one member of a large committee."

Silverman thinks that the current set-up of the secured organizations may "no longer be appropriate" and that it may be in order to consider ways to establish more accountability or oversight of the secured groups.

However, to Silverman, AMP's review of these organizations does not mean adopting a hostile stance.

"I don't think the purpose of this review is to target groups that have a lot of money and say, 'We want it,' " Silverman said.

In an e-mail to the Justice yesterday, Schlangel noted that AMP's meetings will be confidential, but promised transparency.

Schlangel wrote that the establishment of this task force comes at a time when the Union's ability to fund groups adequately is stretched thin, a condition largely due to a much greater number of clubs than when the constitution was enacted.

"Now it seems we have outgrown our capacity, which prompts us [to] conduct this review in order that we can once again provide the necessary support to meet the ever-growing needs of students," he wrote.