DECA receives funding despite push back from members of student government

The club-funding carousel swiveled to DECA this week, and this coalition became the subject of dispute with student government.

DECA, Dixie State College’s club centered on the development of student networking and leadership skills, received $2,541 from the Inter Club Council to travel to its national competition in Salt Lake City. But former and current student senators claim DECA members promised not to request funds this year because of the amount it received last year.

So DECA members chose to ask for funding from Inter Club Council this year rather than student senate.

“As far as the bill written for DECA last year, they requested $10,200 and received $5,700,” said Chaz Whitbeck, student body vice president and a senior biology major from St. George. “An agreement as to whether or not they would come back to student government the following year was understood by five of last year’s eight senators to be true, while one senator was adamant that the bill only stated that they would not return to senate.”

The senator who said DECA agreed to not return to student senate only was Alan Ayala, business senator and sponsor DECA’s bill a year ago.

However, Whitbeck said upon investigation of the minutes from last year’s senate meeting where DECA received its funds there is no record of such an agreement being made. Whitbeck has a document showing those five senators who alleged an agreement was made are willing to stand as witnesses that DECA members promised not to return to DSC Student Association for funds at all this year.

DECA president Matt Sjogren said he was confronted with Whitbeck’s statement from the five senators about the agreement, but he said it should not have mattered because no written agreement was ever made between DECA and Student Senate.

Chancen Hall, DSCSA vice president of clubs and a junior business major from Virgin, said he received confirmation from those five senators that a promise was made by DECA not to ask for funds, but ICC did not take this allegation into consideration when distributing club funding.

“At the time the amount was decided, the ICC knew nothing of this exchange that happened last year in the Student Senate,” Hall said. “The minutes from this particular senate meeting do not contain the agreement at question, so I deemed it inappropriate to include this in the bill investigation.”

Sjogren said the original agreement made on March 27 was for the remaining ICC funds to be divided in half between Raging Red and DECA. However, the bills were tabled and in that time more investigations occurred that allowed Whitbeck to bring forth the information of DECA’s supposed agreement with Student Senate. When this information came forth, Sjogren said the original bill was changed.

Hall said the original bill never contained any kind of statement about a division of funds equally between Raging Red and DECA. He said the original bill only showed DECA’s request for $7,004.

“The crux of the issue is that we look at bills completely individually,” Hall said. “Our bylaws do not state when we are investigating two or more bills that we are mandated to allocate equal funding to both parties. The funds were distributed by what was deemed appropriate by the club representatives as they investigated the bills and measured them up against our bylaws.”

Hall said both organizations’ requests far exceeded ICC’s total budget set aside for distribution.

“We’re extremely grateful for any financial support we receive,” Sjogren said. “[DECA’s] issue is with the process. We felt that we were worked against. We felt bullied.”