The Government of the Student Body’s finance committee has one of the toughest jobs on campus, short of cleaning Jack Trice Stadium after a football game.

Committee members distribute more than a million dollars of student fees to organizations so varied that you’d be hard-pressed to find a single student who agrees with all of them, whether they be Cuffs or the Paintball Club.

So when GSB has a $406,000 deficit, feelings and budgets are going to be hurt.

The recommendation to zero-fund several groups, including PrISUm, the ISU solar car team, and Women in Science and Engineering, has raised emotions across campus.

GSB claims several of these organizations are either pre-professional or can get their funding from other sources.

If this is true, then why were these organizations funded in the first place?

GSB should be consistent with funding allocations, in both fat years and lean. We shouldn’t have to wait for a deficit year to learn the funding process is more subjective than it ought to be.

David Boike’s quote in a Daily article that it was a brutal budget-balancing session may be true, but this might have been avoided if funding rules were always clear and strictly enforced.

In fact, clarity is a major problem in the funding process.

While most club presidents and treasurers manage to make it to the funding meetings and pick up the funding diskette from the GSB office, those unfamiliar with the process are easily confused and led astray.

True, there are dates on the GSB Web site for funding allocation meetings and processes — only they’re for fall 2002 and spring 2003.

Oops.

A missed e-mail or message is all that separates many student groups from funding.

We already berated GSB earlier this week for not advertising the elections — this might seem like overkill. But the point can’t be reiterated enough. If we want students to care (or at least not hate) GSB, students need to know and understand what’s going in.

Publicize the allocations process.

Put it on the Web site in an easily accessible location. Rely on more than treasurer and president e-mails to remind people of the process.

All three of the GSB slates emphasized “communication” with students. Let’s cross our fingers and hope they actually act on the promise in a substantive way.