By Katie Oglesby, Editor-in-Chief
For the 2022-2023 academic year, Student Senate was allocated $92,116. By the second Senate meeting (Jan. 30) of the spring semester, Senate had $18,576.11 left. By the third Senate meeting (Feb. 6), they had $12,644.31 remaining.
As Senate treasurer Hannah Repole ’25 explained, part of the $74,192.89 allocated already by Feb. 6 has not been spent. This includes money allocated for club events that may happen later in the spring semester, so those events may end up costing less than initially budgeted for.
Included in the spring events already allocated for is the Army ROTC Ball, which was given a budget of $5,100 and Ski Club, which was allotted $8,840. Though, Repole noted that while BMC recommended only half of Ski Club’s budget, it was approved in full on the floor. Repole herself cannot vote on budgets.
Senate president Miranda Zamora ’23 explained that much of what is remaining to fund for the spring semester are small club events, like paint nights. Though, at the meeting on Jan. 30, advisor Jon Allen noted that there are two more large-scale events that have not yet been budgeted for. These include Step Show, hosted by the Black Student Union, and Holi, hosted by International Club. Allen explained that Springfest will not require a lot of money from Senate, as that is mostly funded through OSAGL, and in the past, club budget requests for that weekend have been minimal.
The presidents of Black Student Union and International Club did not respond to a request for comment about the perceived impact this may have on their upcoming budget requests.
In the past few years, Senate has had a surplus of funds at the end of the year, but this year, they anticipate dipping into their rollover fund (which has been funded by the excess that has remained the last few years). Their rollover fund currently has $21,489.53 and much of the Jan. 30 meeting was spent deliberating about how much money they would like to see left in the rollover fund at the end of the year.
Allen explained that in previous years, the Senate rollover fund contributed to funds on campus, such as the Mosaic Minds, which provides textbooks to students who can’t afford them, and the Myra T. Heron Fund, which supports academic activities, like study abroad and research for underrepresented students. Sometimes, the rollover fund is used for Senate projects, like the lights on Stine Lake or the bike share program.
This year, Senate is deliberating spending over $5,000 of their rollover fund—as many members recommended keeping $15,000 in the fund for the next year—on the remaining budget requests of the year as they come.
Repole explained that this situation has evolved as a result of an increase in student life, inflation, and budget cuts on campus.
There are about 95 clubs on campus, and Repole said around 70 to 75 of them have already requested money for this academic year.
“Due to budget cuts, Student Senate has become a safety net [for] clubs that can’t fully fund events,” Repole said. “Newman and Hillel association have gotten their budgets cut in half, and now they’re Senate recognized when they never were, and they’re requesting money.”
Allen echoed Repole’s sentiment, saying, “In hindsight, yes [Senate] could have implemented changes earlier to reduce spending in the fall, however with the information they had coming into the semester it would have been difficult to anticipate this happening. This is in part because they received several large requests for events that Senate has never been asked to fund before and because it was difficult to say what spending was going to look like following two years of COVID impacting what kinds of events were being held on campus.”
Despite this, Repole expressed confidence looking toward the end of the semester.
“I’m hopeful that we will make it to the end of the semester being able to fund what we can,” she said. “This is a good opportunity for us and voting members to reexamine how we look at our budgets and how we spend our money.”
She also said for clubs worried about their events being funded that “I will always offer ways we can make it work. Please come to me and we can figure out a way we can make this happen. I want everyone on campus to have an event they are very passionate about. My promise has been we will make it work…We will have your event. We’ll make it work.”
Though, she noted that some compromises may have to be made.
Allen noted that OSAGL can offer free options for clubs without going through Senate. These include paint supplies, decorations, games, sound systems, a mobile photo booth, and a popcorn machine.
“If an organization needs something for an event they can always check with us to see if we have what they need or something similar that they can use,” Allen said.
Senator and Chair of the College Life Advisory Committee Drew Lemon ’24 said, “While the budget crisis is deeply troubling, I am more upset that Senate will be unable to provide financial opportunities to our invaluable student clubs and organizations that make our community so terrific.”
Co-Presidents of The Women’s Network Ella Seaman ’25 and Jules Blech ’24 expressed concern about how the diminished budget may impact their organization.
“We are a little concerned about how this may impact our budget requests, even if we are just asking for money to print marketing materials or provide snacks to incentivize students to come to our events,” Seaman and Blech said. “It is understandable that Senate needs to be more critical given the lack of funds this semester, but it definitely complicates our semester plans. With this in mind, we are going to hold events that require minimal funding and are also going to be prioritizing fundraisers this semester so that we don’t have to rely on Senate funding given the chance they may run out of money.”
Lemon explained that he saw Senate’s budget situation as preventable.
“Currently, the student senate is designed to be the ‘funding network’ to all campus clubs and any expenses that they may incur. With Senate being the financial forefront of all club operations, our fiscal operations are simply…not feasible,” he said. “As more clubs are coming to Senate with exuberantly large budget requests for major expenses like group trips and travel, we have seen that our accounts simply cannot handle the financial strain. I am advocating for a cap on the amount of funding that all clubs can request in an academic year through Senate with the elimination of funding for mass group travel expenses. Additionally, I believe we need a minimum of $20,000 in our roll-over budget, as this will maintain at least a quarter of our typical budget on reserve for some semblance of operation.”
Ultimately, at the third Senate meeting of the semester, the rollover fund floor was set at $15,000, giving Senate around $20,000 total to handle all budgets past Feb. 6.
On the other hand, Senator E.J. Gill ’23 placed most of the responsibility for Senate’s budget challenges on the College.
Gill said, “Senate could have done a better job with the budget. Absolutely. However, the real problem here is not with the Senate. It is the college not allocating more funding to Senate in over five years. Tuition has gone up, our budget has stayed the same. We have more active clubs, with more budget requests. The college wants a vibrant student atmosphere. Then, the administration should put their money where their mouth is and fund clubs adequately.”
Treasurer of Mock Trial Bella Hoffman ’24 expressed feelings of inequity in the budget request process as Senate worked to manage their diminishing budget.
“Our full budget had been approved minus food because ‘we just told another organization no for food for an event, in good conscience I cannot approve this.’ Which we found weird when the BMC made an Instagram post sharing senate funded events which clearly had included food,” Hoffman said. “It was really frustrating, we understood that there was limited budget, but it was frustrating to see clubs getting money for things we had been denied.”
Hoffman elaborated that after submitting a second budget request, their requested money for food was ultimately approved at the Jan. 30 meeting, though, not unanimously.
Hoffman said, “One thing that worries me is that there are clubs who may be unable to get money for events that are imperative to their organizations.”
Lemon said, “We need to change the infrastructure of the senate so we are not the only game in town when it comes to funding club budget requests. This year has shown us we cannot fund every event for every club, and we need to tighten the belt on the amount of funds we can reasonably provide for the health of our budget.”
Senate is now using this as an opportunity to implement changes to make next year’s budget last longer.
Zamora said, “It’s been hard, just because we want to be able to do everything that we can. Our job is to support all these different groups on campus, which proves to be difficult when we have so many groups who have so many great ideas, great events lined up. So…right now we’re really just looking…where we can go from here and what kind of policies, different things we can enact to make sure that this doesn’t happen in the future.”
