Marquette Student Government’s Financial Vice President John Dunlap gave a brief presentation Thursday night outlining the organization’s proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year.
The total budget is estimated at $508,900, down $4,150 from this year’s $513,050 total projected revenues and expenses. Dunlap said the slight decrease is the result of the lack of a reserve fund allocation, which provided MUSG with $7,000 last year.
Over the past three years, MUSG had withdrawn decreasing amounts from their reserve fund, basically a savings account, to supplement their revenue. Dunlap said if the senate wished to use reserve funds again, they would have to vote on and pass legislation to dip into the account.
For the most part, next year’s budget will vary only slightly from this year’s. The most notable change will be an $8,445 decrease going to student organization funding. Next year student organizations will vie for $144,975 of MUSG’s money.
Dunlap said this change represented where MUSG believed students would like to see more of their money spent — for programming on campus.
Offsetting this decrease for organization funding, there will be an increase of money going to the program board, which plans events both on and off campus. Next year the program board will receive $304,400, as opposed to $297,355 of funding this year.
Next year, the Student Activity Fee is planned to account for roughly 84 percent of the revenue for MUSG. This is a $30 fee charged at the beginning of each semester to all undergraduate students. There will not be an increase in this fee from this year to next.
Next year’s estimated total from the fee is $429,000, the same as was estimated from this year’s student contribution.
MUSG’s fiscal year runs the same time as the university’s, spanning from July 1, 2011, through June 30, 2012, said Dunlap, a junior in the College of Business Administration.
MUSG will vote to approve the budget in its next meeting following Easter break, Dunlap said.
After Dunlap’s presentation, Kate Trevey, adviser to MUSG, said it is important for senators to talk with their constituents to see where they would like their money spent.
Trent Carlson, the new executive vice president of MUSG, said the application deadline for non-club sports events occurring between August 29 and September 30, 2011 is this Thursday at 5 p.m.
Carlson, a junior in the College of Business Administration, said he and others within the organization were willing to help students effectively request funds before the deadline.
Several elections also took place at the meeting. Sam Schultz, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, was elected as the new president pro tempore. The president pro tempore acts as a liaison between the executive board and the senate committee meetings and sits in on their respective meetings.
Rosendo Villanueva, Sterling Hardaway and Jilly Gokalgandhi were elected to the student organization funding committee. While Villanueva is a sophomore in the College of Business Administration, Hardaway and Gokalgandhi are freshmen in the College of Arts & Sciences and College of Business Administration, respectively.
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Sidebar:
Tim Lyons, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, said MUSG should be re-proposing an alcohol amnesty policy in two weeks after gathering information on the subject.
Lyons also said MUSG is planning on conducting surveys on landlords. Lyons said this would be done in order to provide students with an idea about which landlords provide good customer service and which “are bad landlords.”