SALP Taskforce investigation on schedule

A taskforce continues to investigate the operations of Student Activities and Leadership Programs.

When the Student Fee Committee put SALP’s funding for 2009-10 budget on reserve last November, it formed the SALP Task Force to investigate the organization in order to find ways that it may run more efficiently and better serve PSU’s students. Now four months later, it continues its examination of SALP.

“My goal for anyone who sits down with me is to educate them on process and our constraints,” said Domanic Thomas, interim SALP director. Thomas has stepped in for SALP director Aimee Shattuck while she is on maternity leave.

The task force, which began its investigation in mid-January, consists entirely of student representatives.

Currently the task force members are Yalta Doe of the Association of African Students, John Lambert of Food For Thought, ASPSU President Hannah Fisher, Ryland Stucke of the Pre Health Society, Vice-chair Tanja Milijevic of the Student Fee Committee and Sean Reins from the ASPSU Senate.

“Several of our advisors have meet with their liaisons, and we talked about generally where we see our struggles and room for improvement,” Thomas said. “The overall goal is to better the system for students … they are just trying to help our students, and we all are.”

Thomas feels that some problems may lay with the understanding of SALP’s ability to handle work request from student groups. He made an example of a group wanting to use a van, or plan an event or rent a space. SALP has set turn around times for a number of formalities such as contracts, lawyers or insurance coverage that they do not have the ability to speed up.

“The SALP taskforce is doing well, they are right on schedule,” Fisher said. “They have a timeline and they are within that timeline.”

Unless another date is requested by the SFC or the task force itself, the task force should be concluding and reporting its recommendations for changing SALP to the SALP Advisory Board by Feb. 19.

“They’ve already met with the advisors of SALP, they will meet with the student forums next week,” Fisher said. “The point of meeting with the student groups is to glean information from them regarding SALP.”

As the task force progresses towards its goal, funding for SALP remains on reserve, a budget that is “approximately $1 million-dollars” according to ASPSU’s Web site.

“We have 26 total groups in the process of being recognized and that puts us somewhere in the amount of 180 groups,” Thomas said. “That’s 26 more group asking for the same dollars, and it’s the same dollars—there are no new dollars.”