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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

MUSG proposes budget for 2015

MUSG+convenes+its+first+senate+meeting+after+Sam+Schultz+and+Zach+Bowman+were+inaugurated+as+president+and+executive+vice+president%2C+respectively.+Photo+by+Xidan+Zhang%2F+xidan.zhang%40mu.edu
MUSG convenes its first senate meeting after Sam Schultz and Zach Bowman were inaugurated as president and executive vice president, respectively. Photo by Xidan Zhang/ [email protected]

Nick Ciccone, Marquette Student Government Financial Vice President and a junior in the College of Business Administration, announced Thursday a proposal for MUSG’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget, which contains a decrease in anticipated total revenue.

Ciccone and former MUSG President Sam Schultz, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, were the primary authors of the MUSG budget.

“Our goal, like it is every year, is to hit every line and to spend all the money that we allocate to every line, because we don’t want to have any money left over and have that go to the reserve fund,” Ciccone said. “No one wants money to continue to go to the reserve fund. Our goal is the to shrink the reserve fund and with this budget we think it is a good attempt at meeting that goal.”

MUSG, like the university, employs a balanced budget philosophy, meaning it plans to spend all of its revenue for the next fiscal year. Because the budget it is building is only a forecast, it is unlikely to have the exact revenues for which it is budgeting.

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MUSG is anticipating $469,850 in total revenues for FY2015, a $1,900 decrease from this past year.

The decrease comes because it is losing about $14,500 total revenue from films and special events. These programs are not being cut but, MUSG is just hoping that it will be able to provide those services to students for free.

MUSG anticipates offsetting the loss of that revenue with a substantial increase in activity fee revenue.

The Student Activity Fee is a $30 fee that students pay as part of their tuition each semester and is the primary source of revenue for MUSG. MUSG expects a $12,600 increase in activity fee revenue because the university is projecting a larger number of students to attend Marquette next year than were enrolled this year.

As per MUSG financial rules, 30 percent of all Student Activity Fee Revenue must go to Student Organization Funding, the process by which student organizations can apply for and receive funding assistance from MUSG for events. This means student organizations would have $132,480 available in funding next year.

The biggest change from last year in the proposed FY15 budget is a large decrease in the After Dark budget.

After Dark is a series of themed events and late night activities put on by MUSG’s program board, usually on Thursday and Friday nights. The proposed budget cuts $18,700 from After Dark, decreasing the budget from $46,700 to $28,000.

“Because other programs are also in the same time slot as After Dark, we felt that we could reduce that budget,” Ciccone said. “The proposed cut is $18,700 and we wanted to push that into other events.”

Since this is only a proposed budget, everything is subject to change as it goes through committee and finally gets approved by the senate in the coming weeks.

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