The 51st student senate ratified the student activities budget for the 2011-2012 academic year on Tuesday, April 26, after the legislative body heard appeals from different organizations.
The legislative body heard their final batch of appeals from both students and clubs requesting money from the Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) Unappropriated Fund.
The first appeal came from Jose Mohr, a student who said he had paid $1,275 of his own money in December 2010 to sponsor a cultural barbeque event for Latinas Unidas.
He was told by a member of the BFC that he would be reimbursed, but he said he wasn’t told that the event had been canceled. Some said he was operating under false information, and Mohr said he couldn’t deal with reimbursement at the time because he was consumed with personal issues.
Disbursing Agent Linda Lendvay said she told that member of BFC to neither hold the event nor tell Mohr to lend out the money. The decision to reimburse Mohr was unanimous.
The senate then heard an appeal from the Ice Hockey club. Representatives said about 21 team members paid approximately $350 each, as part of a team fee, into a Student Association (SA) account. They said the team had no other options but to place the money into this account, according to a Board of Trustee guideline
The club was asking for this money back, in the amount of $3,033. The legislative body agreed to give them their own money back and approved this decision unanimously.
Black Week made an appeal after reconciling with African Student Union (ASU) over a mistake in their previous budgets. Both requested $7,900, but meant to split that amount between each for the ASU fashion show, which Black Week partakes in. The legislative body made two votes because they were dealing with two clubs.
The first decision was to grant $4,650 to ASU with the stipulation that the funds go to designers for the fashion show which passed 11 to 0 with three senators abstaining. The second decision was to grant $3,250 to Black Week with the stipulation that the funds go to the DJ, background and lighting which passed 11 to 0 with three senators abstaining.
An Envied Fashion representative said he did not receive enough funding for their own line item budget.
He said their lack of knowledge about having to attend the Council of Organizations meetings resulted from the scheduling of their elections in the spring. They said there was a “lack of communication” between the old and new e-boards.
Envied Fashion was allocated $6,510, though the group said they wanted another $3,000 to pay for things like fabric, design and stitching needed for their show. The legislative body approved their appeal by a vote of 13-1 with a stipulation that Envied Fashions must attend all Council of Organization meetings for the fall 2011 semester.
Carribash made an appeal to add $6,000 to bring their allocated overall budget to $15,000 in order to add more activites to their week of events which would increase the cost.
The legislative body denied their appeal. Their reasoning was that although requests for week events increase, the budget does not.
After the appeals were heard, the senators unanimously voted to ratify the budget. It was approved by a vote of 13-1.
The next general meeting of the student senate will be held on Tuesday, May 3.