The challenge for the Students’ Association lies not in spending $111, 500; the challenge lies in spending it well.

And thus far, our money-once Congress had enough people to vote on it-has been well spent, with few exceptions.

Several additions to this semester’s budget are good ideas. Foremost of these is a section for Campus Improvements.

Allocating funds for such projects as electronic voting and similar improvements that will benefit the student body is a wise decision. However, we question the necessity for electronic bowling, especially when the funds for it would have likely gone to a jogging track.

The reasoning behind the removal of funds from a jogging track-despite campaign promise to help get the track done-is that it costs too much money for SA to raise in one year.

The quick-fix approach calls for spending the money where these executive officers can feel good now about a tangible improvement to which they contributed. This is short-sighted thinking and fiscally non-conservative.

Based on student reaction, observance and letters to this publication, the physical improvement the student body most desires is a jogging track. Two straight senior classes have donated their class gift to its construction, and until this semester, SA was devoted to helping raise funds for its completion.

We encourage SA to stay the course and act in the interests of future students, as well as current ones.

Most troubling about the budget this semester is the allocation of a salary for chief development officer Jessica Oakley, who is not enrolled as a student-she graduated in December.

Congress declined to make the payment an issue because it was already made, and members did not wish to rescind her salary-an understandable reservation. However, Congress must act to assure this cannot happen again.

All full-time undergraduate students are members of the Students’ Association-this includes students enrolled in fewer than 12 hours in their final semester. The funds from the student body pay for the students’ government-a government run by students, not by alumni.

The Constitution’s letter does not require that administrative officers-the CDO, chief communication officer or chief financial officer-be students. However, its spirit is quite clear that SA is to be a government run by the students for the students. Using student funds to pay for non-student salaries is a situation the Constitution never begins to approach.

We generally like the budget Congress passed last week and trust it to be wise with our $30,000 when it decides on that money’s allocation either this week or next-as long as the money funds students.