The Student Activity Fee Allocation Committee (SAFAC) is a group of student volunteers who come together at the end of each fiscal year.

They meet on campus to figure out how to give any, and all, student clubs and organizations the funds they need to continue into the next fiscal year.

A fiscal year is not Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, but from when taxes are processed each year to the next.

During this time for SMSU, every student activity organization has to submit (if they need funds) a budget request for the next fiscal year for SAFAC to review and analyze.

Overseen by advisor Scott Ewing, this takes hours upon hours of crunching numbers, reading spreadsheets, discussing, and debating.

This is all in order to stay within an allotted limit of funds in the Student Activity Fee account, but still give each club what they have asked for, or as much of it as possible.

A lot of this information is well known and comes without any amount of shock; it’s just how things work.

What many people may not be aware of is the fact that each and every member of SAFAC give up valuable time in the few weeks before finals and immediately before and after spring break, in order to go over every minute detail of all student activities on campus.

At this time, there are 93 separate entities, in total. Even though Student Government is paid, SAFAC’s considerable responsibilities go uncompensated.

Throughout all of these separate student organizations are revenues, deficits, proceeds, conventions, travel, salary, and basic fees that are all carefully accounted for and logged in SAFAC’s decision making.

Beyond that, separate members of the committee are petitioned and approached by friends from around campus, all advocating for one group or another, up until the final decisions are sent out for approval from President Gores.

In the end, each club or organization is given a fair allocation that may or may not meet that club’s hopes, but fits as neatly as possible into a much larger picture of making sure every club and organization is given its due.

In the end, the members of SAFAC are given no thanks for their time and effort, only expected to do it all again the next year and the next.