My name is Paul Brink. I am a graduate of Wichita State University, and I served in Student Government Association for the 2015-2016 school year.

During that time, I served as an At-Large Senator, Chief Election Commissioner, and on the Budget and Finance and Student Fees Committees.

As you may remember from that year, the budget to be allocated by the Student Fees Committee was greatly reduced from previous years, and there was no reserve left to utilize. As a result of that, we were forced to make cuts to the organizations funded by Student Fees, something that none of us wanted to do.

Although it was a difficult position, our committee made choices based on minimizing the loss of services to students. One of the choices we made was to cut the budget of The Sunflower from the traditional budget of $158,000 annually down to $105,000 for the following fiscal year. This decision was not made based on the value provided by The Sunflower to students, but instead based on the ability of The Sunflower to continue providing the same level of services by utilizing their reserves.

This was intended to be a temporary reduction for one fiscal year only, and to restore funding to the necessary level of $158,000 the following year.

This was also intended to shield more vulnerable organizations that did not have the ability to absorb a cut of this magnitude over that fiscal year. These intentions were made perfectly clear to everyone on the Senate at that time.

Since 2016, there have been tremendous changes not only to the university administrators that sit on the Student Fees Committee, but also to the students that are voting members of that committee.

As a result of this, the original intention of a temporary funding cut for The Sunflower has been lost. The Student Fees Committee recommended budget for Fiscal Year 2019 includes only $55,000 for The Sunflower, which is simply not enough for our student newspaper to continue operations.

In 2016, I inspected the budget and operating documents from The Sunflower when they presented and officially requested funding. I am very well aware that The Sunflower requires their full budget of $158,000 to continue to function at the level to which we have become accustomed. A cut of this magnitude will serve to destroy The Sunflower as we know it.

I can only speculate as to the motivations behind this decrease in recommended funding. I know that with in-person credit hours continuing to decrease, and many students replacing that with more online classes, the Student Fees budget continues to be strained.

Certainly the members of the Student Fees Committee had many difficult choices to make, as we did in 2016. However, it is abundantly clear that the members of the Student Fees Committee in 2018 did not make the same considerations as the 2016 committee.

As stewards of this budget, there is an obligation to ensure that organizations are provided with the tools needed to serve the student body, as it is possible.

This recommended budget does not consider the very real value that The Sunflower provides to the students at Wichita State University, let alone its important role in academics for communications or journalism majors.

I am no longer a student at WSU, but as an alum I am deeply troubled by this. I would like to urge the Senate to exert their powers of oversight over the Student Fees Committee, and vote against this proposed budget. If the Senate rejects this proposed budget, it can go back into deliberations by the Student Fees Committee, which can recommend a new budget proposal at a later date.

—Paul Brink is a graduate of Wichita State University

To submit a Letter to the Editor, please visit thesunflower.com/letter