The Student Council held a special legislative session Monday to discuss and vote on the proposed 2017 summer budget which totals $29,837 and provides for all of Student Council’s expenditures during the summer and into the fall semester.
The summer budget takes effect starting the day after the end of the academic term on May 13 until mid-October when the Student Council votes on the next budget.
Student Council’s funding for their budget can be broken down into two categories — that which comes from the Student Activities Fee and non-Student Activities Fee funding.
SAF funding has certain restrictions and cannot be used for food, inherently political activities and inherently religious activities, among other restrictions. SAF funding composes $13,397.00 of the budget while $16,440.00 comes from non-SAF funding.
The 2017 summer budget is nearly $5,000 greater than the 2016 summer budget.
The budget was passed with 12 votes in favor and none opposing or abstaining. Final passage of the budget is contingent on approval from the Student Activities Committee which meets next Monday.
“This meeting is really just a chance for the representative body to vote on our budget and approve it and so the University students have a voice in where their money's being spent,” Director of University Relations and third-year Batten student Katie Brandon said.
Representatives were allowed to propose amendments and debate those amendments before voting on their inclusion in the final budget.
Student Council provides the funding for activities of the Academic Resource Fair, the Community Garden and the Activities Fair, among many other things.
“The goal is for most of the initiatives on the Student Council budget … is really to try to make them affect the most students possible with the least amount of money,” Vice President for Administration and second-year College student Alex Cintron said.
The greatest expense increase is to the Student Council’s Outreach Committee. In the 2016 summer budget, Student Council spent no money on outreach, but is planning to spend $5,500 this summer.
The purpose of the Outreach Committee, according to the budget, is to “be concerned with diversifying membership within Student Council and aiding Marketing & Communications with establishing the desired StudCo ‘brand.’” All of the money allocated to outreach will be spent on Activities Fair items such as “cups, pens, handbills, pop-up banners [and] drawstring bags.”
The budget also includes decreased spending in some areas. Spending on the Sustainability committee is being cut by $1,950 as compared to summer 2016.
Student Council is also decreasing spending in the area of legislative affairs by $1,775 as compared to summer 2016. The Legislative Affairs Committee is “responsible for encouraging student participation in the political process and representing the interests of University students,” according to the budget.
Brandon said she felt the discussion over the budget went well overall.
“This is the best budgetary debate I've seen ever, so I think it's a good sign,” Brandon said. “It's good looks for the next upcoming term."
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