Two weekends ago, the top pair of BU policy debaters qualified for the National Debate Tournament (NDT) — the most prestigious event in college debate and a championship attended by only the top 78 policy debate pairs from around the country.

But budget constraints may keep Binghamton’s top policy debate team, Trevor Reddick and Philip George, from attending the tournament at the end of March.

Joseph Leeson-Schatz, director of the speech and debate team at Binghamton University, explained that the NDT simply does not fit into the team’s budget.

“The tournament is out in Idaho, and the flights are sort of expensive,” he said. “Tickets are running anywhere from $400 to $800 depending on where we would fly out from and which airport we’d fly into. Registration fees are also relatively expensive, as is judging, so in order for us to attend that tournament we would probably need an extra $3000.”

The team receives funds from the University president’s office, the Student Association, and the Harpur dean’s office, with $12,000, $19,000, and $15,000 coming from each, respectively, as well as money from the team’s endowment.

Binghamton’s debaters do not pay for tournament fees or hotel stays, according to Schatz. However, they are asked to pay for their own plane tickets whenever the team flies somewhere.

“Between the semesters we went out to California, and the vast majority of the team paid for their plane tickets,” Schatz said.

There is a system in place to help students who don’t have the means to pay for their own plane tickets.

“A lot of times we judge at various different high school tournaments and get paid to judge there” he said. “That’s one of the major fundraisers we do. Anytime we pay for someone’s plane ticket is because that person has fundraised a very similar amount to how much they need to fly.”

Binghamton had previously qualified for the NDT in the 2004-05, 2005-06, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2010-11 debate seasons.

Schatz said that the nature of Binghamton’s debate team is a contributing factor to the strain on its tight budget.

“A lot of programs like Georgetown, Northwestern, Harvard, Emory, are not really concerned with people who didn’t debate in high school,” Schatz said. “They only care about people who debated in high school and who have a chance to succeed at the national level. Whereas Binghamton’s program is more focused on getting people who didn’t debate in high school and helping them gain experience. We consistently bring anywhere between eight and 15 teams when we go to a tournament. Occasionally we’ll go to a national tournament where we’ll bring only our top one or two teams.”

Though Schatz pointed out that the team’s budget has not been increased in several years, he admitted that the team should consider itself lucky.

“The administration has not increased our budget in a while and has kept it steady, which is actually pretty decent given the fact that most other programs on campus have been cut down due to budgetary constraints and state funding issues,” he said.

Schatz said that he had recently gone to the provost to ask for additional funds so that he would be able to take the team to Cross Examination Debate Association’s national tournament and to the novice national debate tournament, and that his requests were granted.

“When I met with him that was all we needed to have funded,” he said. “I wasn’t necessarily expecting to qualify [to the NDT]. But then we did qualify, which was great because we qualified, but bad because we didn’t have the money to get there.”

Student Association Vice President for Finance Eric Larson said in an email that although the team’s success cannot be ignored, it has no bearing on the amount of money that it receives.

“In the budget packets I released to all student groups explaining how the budget decision process worked, it did establish that the financial council gives preference for budget increases to smaller groups that need to get a foothold on campus,” he wrote.

Larson also cited the fact that the debate team’s budget was raised to $19,000 in 2010, and said that he has not heard of any additional funding requests coming in.

“According to the records I have, they do have enough money left in their account to cover this $3000 expenditure,” Larson wrote.

Schatz emphasized the importance that the NDT has on the future of the team.

“Getting to the NDT shows high schoolers who follow the college circuit that Binghamton has a competitive program,” Schatz said. “This year there were six different students with high school experience who contacted me who have applied to Binghamton for next year. They found out about the Binghamton program because of how many times we have attended and qualified for the NDT in the past, as well as the national rankings system.”

Schatz said he will be meeting over the next two weeks with the president’s and dean’s offices to try to obtain more funding.