Student Council representatives unanimously passed a resolution during Tuesday’s final general body meeting of the semester, approving the Summer 2025 budget of $67,642. The Council also passed a resolution approving 14 Contracted Independent Organizations and heard an announcement of the Student Council representatives who will be serving as chair pro-tempore, chair of community concerns and chair of internal affairs for the 2025-2026 term.
Clay Dickerson, Student Council president and third-year College student, discussed the reasoning behind this year’s smaller budget — the Summer 2024 budget was $195,071. He said the most important goal is to have the breakdown of the budget be well-justified to maximize utilization rates.
“By ensuring that every dollar has a place to go, we ensure that whenever we collect data, whenever we present it to donors, they have faith in us,” Dickerson said. “It’s one thing to budget and one thing to spend correctly.”
Utilization rates refer to the amount of money actually used within the allocated budget — increasing these rates to prevent wasted money has been a primary goal of Student Council. This is because Student Council bylaws state that unspent money cannot be reallocated to committees within Student Council to meet other needs until the next budget cycle — there are two budget cycles per calendar year, one for the summer and one for the academic year.
In a statement to The Cavalier Daily, Imane Akhanous, chair of the representative body and third-year College student, said the Council’s Summer 2025 budget’s biggest allocation will be $29,000 to the CIO consultants committee. This committee is a part of the Organizations branch of Student Council and is responsible for developing resources and programs for CIOs on Grounds, according to the bylaws.
Michael Mitchell, Student Council vice president for organizations and second-year Commerce student, heads the Organizations branch and said during Tuesday’s meeting that of this $29,000, $24,000 will be going towards funding tents and tables for the Fall Activities Fair — an annual event for hundreds of CIOs to present their missions and recruit new members.
“I [planned the activities fair] last year,” Mitchell said. “I have a pretty good feel on where we should be, but keeping in mind utilization rates, I think this is a very accurate [budget].”
During the legislative session of Tuesday’s meeting — when the budget resolution was being discussed — second-year College Rep. Brian Ng questioned why certain agencies have zero allocated funding for the summer but still have listed initiatives to work towards. Ng pointed out the agencies with no funding in the proposed budget were Student Legal Services, which provides low-cost legal services to University students, the Accommodations Access Fund, which has a primary purpose of helping students pay to apply for disability accommodations through the University and International Student Affairs, which aims to advocate for international students, according to the bylaws.
Dickerson responded that the SLS attorney is not funded through the Student Council but rather through a separate agreement, and that the AAF does not need allocated money for the summer because the fund has recently received funding from Student Council and will receive funding again in the fall.
Micah Andrews, chief of support and access services and second-year College student, also explained other budget cuts regarding Airbus — a Student Council service that provides low-cost bus tickets between the University and Richmond and Dulles airports for University breaks and move-in and move-out for each school year.
In response to Ng asking if Airbus cuts were due to a decrease in demand for the service, Andrews said surveys of past Airbus users indicated a need for only two buses coming to the University from airports for fall move-in, but that this is not due to decreased demand — SAS has just been working towards rearranging dates for the service to maximize student use.
There are Airbus tickets available for one spring move-out bus May 10 departing from the University to Dulles Airport. Tickets for two buses for fall move-in are available to students for Monday, Aug. 18 and Thursday, Aug. 21, both arriving from Dulles Airport.
“Students do utilize the Airbus,” Andrews said. “But, [SAS] picked dates that students [preferred] based on the surveys from last year, so we get more utilization per bus this year.”
The resolution to approve this Summer 2025 budget passed unanimously among Council representatives.
The second resolution passed during Tuesday’s meeting approved 14 new CIOs on Grounds, and the Council heard from three of these CIO leaders who were present to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting -– in which any member of the audience can make an announcement to the Council.
First-year College student Rafferty Lee spoke as the president of his new CIO, Plushies for Patients. Lee explained the goal of his organization is to create and donate stuffed animals to patients in the hospital and emphasized that he and his club members have already formed a connection with the University hospital, even before they reached official CIO status.
Other highlighted CIOs from Tuesday’s meeting include the Ukrainian Student Association which will provide a community at the University to share Ukrainian culture and history as well as the OM Meditation Club which will incorporate mindfulness meditation, Integral Tai-Chi and Dharma teachings to foster self-improvement among students.
Tuesday’s meeting additionally included an announcement from Akhanous that School of Law Rep. Kasey Michaud will be chair pro-tempore, second-year College Rep. Ian Travis will be chair of community concerns and third-year College Rep. David Dzul will be chair of internal affairs for the 2025-2026 term. According to Student Council bylaws, these three chairs were appointed by Akhanous, with the chair of external affairs still to be determined.
Also according to the bylaws, chair pro-tempore temporarily serves during general body meetings as chair of the representative body in the case of an absence, chair of community concerns records concerns raised during meetings by both public attendees and representatives and chair of internal affairs may cut a requested budget with the goal of ensuring the Council remains financially secure.
Student Council will not be holding general body meetings while the University is in summer session, but will reconvene the first week of classes for the Fall 2025 semester Tuesday, Aug. 26 at 6:30 p.m.
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