Student Group Proposes Subsidizing Review Debt

The Student Advisory Committee (SAC) of the Institute of Politics voted Sunday, night to recommend that the institute subsidize an outstanding debt of the Harvard Political Review, in order to ensure the survival of the magazine.

While the exact amount of the debt was withheld by members of the SAC and officers of the Review, it was placed in the neighborhood of $2000 by a former member of the Committee.

The debt, consisting of a number of printer's bills which had arrived late and "were not processed," escaped the attention of the magazine's past management until this fall, Alex Vik '78, general manager of the Review, said yesterday.

Bills are continually coming in and it is impossible to determine the exact sum of our current debt," Joy F. Kahlenberg '78, the newly-elected chairman of the SAC added.

Funding

The SAC recommendation proposes that two thirds of the debt be funded directly and the remainder defrayed over the next few years through the introduction of money saving measures, such as a shift to a more economical format and cutting an issue, Jack Bloom '79, SAC member and chairman of the Planning, Budget, and Evaluation Committee at the institute said yesterday.

At the time the debt was announced to the SAC, an ad hoc subcommittee was formed to investigate the state of the journal's financial condition and make recommendations on how the full committee should respond.

The subcommittee suggested that the magazine's accounting system be restructured to avoid such errors in the future.

Restructuring

As a condition to the institute's assuming responsibility for the debt, the subcommittee suggested that the magazine's accounting system be restructured to avoid such errors in the future.

The decision was further supported by the results of a poll which indicated that the size of the Review's readership compared favorably with that of the Lampoon and the Crimson.

The Review, which had hoped to break even four years ago. is now running on an annual budget donated by the SAC in addition to its ad and subscription revenues, James H. Tucker, a law school representative on the SAC, said yesterday.