On Feb. 10, Student Assembly (SA) held a meeting to allocate strategic budget funds to student organizations on campus for events and activities. Student organization leaders attended the meeting to ask questions of SA members, advocate for their club’s budget to pass, or to work with SA to reach a mutual agreement on funding outcomes.
In the weeks leading up to the meeting, student groups submitted budget proposals to the SA Treasurer Nicole Ramirez ’23. These budgets must be submitted on time and according to a list of constitutional funding rules, which include requiring itemized lists with specific prices and dates for events.
The funding committee, composed of treasurers from each class year, reviewed each budget proposal, an extensive process that can take up to 10 hours. The class treasurers that comprise the funding committee are Julian Perricone ’20, Shavell Jones ’21, Lóri Fejes ’22 and Omar Lopez ’23. The funding committee then submitted its funding recommendations to the entire assembly for discussion and voting at this meeting. When evaluating budgets the funding committee states that they work to be fair, impartial and transparent about recommendations.
Late budgets or those that violated funding codes were automatically denied funding and asked to resubmit for consideration for non-strategic funding at next week’s meeting. Some groups, including the DJ Club, Photography Club, Classics Club and Grilling Club, were denied funding because they submitted late and were instead considered for non-strategic funding.
Other clubs were denied funding for violating section 11 of the funding code, including Special K, Duelly Noted, Mock Trial and Untitled @ Large. This means that if organizations do not roll back money before the deadline, the last non-strategic meeting of last semester, then they are ineligible for strategic funding for the next semester. However, these clubs are still eligible for non-strategic funding and were asked to resubmit for the meeting on Feb 17.
In the meeting, discussions with club leaders considered the number of students involved with a club’s event, the value of the experience the club provides and whether there are alternative sources of funding available or cheaper options to mitigate costs.
After discussion with club leaders, a motion to override a funding code prohibiting funding for an event within 10 days of a club’s budget proposal submission passed, granting funds to TedX’s 2020 political divisions, which is a live TedX event that brings speakers to campus.
The discussion resulted in funding for Debate Club, Boffer Club, Scottish Country Dance, HamTrek, SAAC, Powder Club, and American Chemical Society. Other clubs, including Poetry Slam, Smash Club and Finance Club, were instructed to resubmit once they have a more concrete idea of the cost of their event. More information about the meeting is available in the SA meeting minutes.
