Marquette Student Government Financial Vice President Ted Eberle announced the 2015 MUSG was over-budget by $20,000 at the first senate meeting Sept. 14.
Last year’s budget committee was set at $475,850 in consideration of expenses and revenue. Eberle explained most of the $20,000 went to Student Organization Funding and was not compensated from the expected revenue.
Eberle was asked to discuss more about the budget, but replied in an email that he preferred to wait until all information was finalized.
The majority of revenue for the budget comes from the $30 student semester activity fee that is taken out of tuition each year. Past revenue budgets received money from other sources such as Senior Week and Varsity movies. Changes were made so MUSG did not receive that money this past year.
This year, SOF is changing its application process. MUSG Vice President Aliya Manjee said SOF will still hold two bulk funding periods in fall and spring semester. In addition, MUSG will begin spot funding this year, where MUSG will accept applications every Tuesday at 7 p.m. This change was administered last semester after an evaluation from the Lean Six Sigma program.
“The conclusion that (the evaluation) came to is that (SOF) could be more effective if we did this spot funding process,” Manjee said.
She added that funds will be available to students throughout the year and the process will be easier for student organizations.
Last year’s budget committee set this year’s SOF budget at $5,000 for club sports and non-club sports. Manjee said funds for club sports are usually over-allocated due to higher expenses such as traveling. She said that she expects the sum of application requests to be more than $5,000.
“It’s not like we’re 100 percent in crisis mode,” Manjee said. “But it’s just something that we have to obviously keep our eye on and keep track of on the spending, especially with SOF spot funding.”
Manjee said she is intrigued to hear what Eberle has to say since the amount in the reserve fund remains unknown.
“Funding will still continue regardless of how our budget looks like,” said Emily Gorz, MUSG communications vice president.
At the meeting, Eberle explained the reserve fund will compensate for last year’s over-spending.
“The reserve fund comes from students who apply for money, get their money and don’t go through the reimbursement process,” Manjee said. She confirmed its purpose is for situations like over-spending.
A layout of the 2016 fiscal year budget which started on July 1, is available online.
