Student Government Association passed its spring semester budget Wednesday for student-led organizations with an allocated budget of $33,000.
Clubs and organizations use this time to garner more funding by having a senator lobby for respective requested budgets. These requests are then voted on and amended to the final budget proposal.
“Our mission statement at SGA is to empower each student organization with the funding assistance necessary to maximize ACU’s on-campus student experience,” said Lindsey May, SGA president and senior marketing major from Farmersville, during the budget meeting.
Organizations requested 218% of SGA’s total budget with a collective request of $73,000. The average request was $1,263. Last year, SGA’s budget was $36,000 and 41% of student organization requests were fulfilled.
The allocation process was the same as last year, said Nathan Marshall, SGA Treasurer.
“We had a little less organizations apply upfront for funding and we were able to increase the amount given to organizations overall,” Marshall, junior financial management and information systems major from McKinney said.
The student organization with the most funding is the International Student Association with a grant of $3,480, and the lowest amount granted was $52 to the American Society of Interior Designers.
However, despite granting less funding than what organizations requested, SGA has rolled out travel expenses which will be a separate request and will be handled on a rolling basis.
“It allows us to require more detailed planning because those are normally big budget events,” Marshall said. “So if you are requesting a couple of thousand dollars to go to a conference, we want to make sure that you have more of a basis for that budget estimate. It allows for better comparison between on-campus student organization events.”
This travel expense budget is $7,500, making the overall SGA budget $40,500 with an overall increase in funding.
The budget passed the senate with 27 in favor and one opposed, and one amendment to allocate $1.50 from each organization to Sigma Delta Phi.
