SGA Vice President of Financial Affairs is a necessarily limited position given the comparatively small SGA budget the University has compared with some other SEC schools. Given that fact, it is not surprising that the strongest point in Charlie Steinmetz’s platform, much-needed changes to the “Got Meals?” program, could have just as well been found in the platform of a candidate for a different office – and was in that of Executive Vice President candidate Casey Nelson. Still, though we were somewhat underwhelmed with the scope of his platform, we believe that he is entirely capable of succeeding at his goals.

Perhaps the most relevant portion of his platform calls for an increase in FAC funding by $50,000 from its current rate, a pittance compared to student governments at other similarly-sized universities. While we believe that this number would ideally be significantly higher, we understand his decision to avoid overplaying his hand by requesting too much and possibly receiving nothing.

Charlie’s platform calls for more money for both need-based and book scholarships, but while he is transparent in his inability to do anything other than ask the administration nicely for increased FAC funding, the source of funding for these scholarships is less clear. His platform calls for increased publicity for SGA fundraisers, but he did not specify in his interview which fundraisers he would like to publicize. Given the tendency of SGA programs to break even rather than raise money due to inefficient marketing, we hope that he will do more research before making this decision.

As several members of this editorial board are military dependents who are not in financial need, we question the wisdom of extending scholarships to veterans and dependents equally, as Charlie stated he would ideally do. Still, we admire his monetary, rather than simply rhetorical commitment to our military community.

His plan to revitalize and expand the “Got Meals?” initiative is the most promising of his ideas. In recognizing that publicity is counterproductive without a significant funding increase, he avoids the mistakes that many candidates have made in oversaturating campus antipoverty programs. He effectively answered all concerns we had with the implementation of these reforms and the campus will be better off for it. This board sees great potential in Charlie’s ability to serve our campus, and we hope that he quickly achieves his goals and moves onto other, more ambitious projects.

Our View represents the consensus of The Crimson White Editorial Board.