They most certainly do.
This statement indicates you aren’t fully knowledgeable of committee finances nor understand Committees use the funds generated by honorariums to buy the equipment they want. Monthly stipends basically cover ongoing consumables and repairs. See my comments above on how Machine Shop spends the $500/mo stipend.
Money generated beyond the stipends is raised by instructors and is how committees raise money to purchase other equipment. Committees often use that money for bigger purchases and will sometimes ask for matching funds from the BoD which wants the committee to have some skin in the purchase. Machine Shop recently spent an additional $2,000 dollars on accessories for the Sherlines. We spent another $500 on items for the Bridgeport and the Engine Lathe. We will be buying additional tools, about $1,000 worth in September to round out more of our capabilities. All these latter purchases were completely out of funds raised internally and are what Machine Shop members voted on to buy. We have five major tools that require training to use, we have been fortunate in that we’ve got a cadre of instructors that allows each machine to average 2.5 ~ 3 classes per month, about 12-15 classes a month, with over half of the instructors giving the entire honorarium to the committee. We have a number of Day Maker classes to support the members that have difficulty making evening classes.
Machine Shop voted that all money generated by the Haas classes are reserved for future Haas maintenance as repairs tend to be expensive. The consumables are paid separately the same as the other tools.
In CA committee meetings a list of all tools wanted are put on a list and the priority is voted on by committee members, these are paid for out of honorariums because the monthly stipend goes for the massive amount of small purchases for supplies too small to be charged for but collectively add up.
Wood Shop teaches a lot of classes - but they have high consumables and repairs and most is used there.
The only major item recently purchased that was fully exclusively by the BoD is for the Vacuum Former, ~ $16.5K with shipping. This is an item that didn’t clearly fall into any existing committee’s sphere (we don’t have a Plastics Committee), but was/is much wanted and replaced a defunct old one. 3D Fab has taken the lead in managing it.
Laser committee has zero funding and is completely self-supporting through materials fees, laser time, and classes taught. They are going to buy two more medium sized lasers from the company we bought the Thunder
Laser from - these will replace the Lasersaur.
I could go through the other committees but the point I believe is made.