SGA starts budgetary process, prepares for Spring Fling
Ryan Blankenship
Issue date: 2/25/09 Section: News
'Budgetary season' is among us and so is the scramble each semester with organizations attempting to lobby for every dollar of allocation money the Student Government Association has to offer. Business Manager Ashley Hicks as well as members of the Budgetary Committee will have their hands full this week. With appointments made by the Business Manager as well as elections within the Student Senate, this term's Budgetary Committee consists of Ombudsman Brittany Keys, Tau Kappa Epsilon representative Curtis Kearns, Phi Sigma Phi representative Bruce Tedder, Commuter Senator Karina Rahall, Phi Alpha Delta representative Brad Garner, Attorney General Jeff Yeager, and Sigma Tau Gamma representative Bill Lewis. President Wes Prince and Business Manager Ashley Hicks are also members.
Organizations must submit a budget to the Business Manager with certain restrictions and argue for those budgets with criteria such as how the money will be spent to benefit the campus at large. Once the deadline passes when organizations may not submit anything further, the Budgetary Committee meets for hours and hours to discuss and review said budget submissions as organizational representatives lobby the committee and explain their reasoning. The committee then reviews each budget, considers the arguments, weighs options, then decides whether to give the organization a partial allocation, full allocation, or a zero allocation. The results are announced in the SGA meeting following the first initial meeting of the Budgetary Committee. Once results are announced, organizations may appeal these decisions, but usually the results announced at the meeting are the stopping point. Seldom does the committee change its mind unless it receives a very good reason for doing so.
Also busy this week is the interim Vice President, Matthew Belcher. As per the duties of the Vice President to coordinate committees, he/she is responsible for planning the spring event that is now set for April 13th to 17th. Vice President Belcher is hard at work calling entertainment companies and negotiating contracts. "After negotiating with companies, we have reached an agreement and I hope that the Budgetary Committee will approve the budget I submitted and will be able to bring a good spring event to Concord that the students will enjoy" said Vice President Belcher.
Organizations must submit a budget to the Business Manager with certain restrictions and argue for those budgets with criteria such as how the money will be spent to benefit the campus at large. Once the deadline passes when organizations may not submit anything further, the Budgetary Committee meets for hours and hours to discuss and review said budget submissions as organizational representatives lobby the committee and explain their reasoning. The committee then reviews each budget, considers the arguments, weighs options, then decides whether to give the organization a partial allocation, full allocation, or a zero allocation. The results are announced in the SGA meeting following the first initial meeting of the Budgetary Committee. Once results are announced, organizations may appeal these decisions, but usually the results announced at the meeting are the stopping point. Seldom does the committee change its mind unless it receives a very good reason for doing so.
Also busy this week is the interim Vice President, Matthew Belcher. As per the duties of the Vice President to coordinate committees, he/she is responsible for planning the spring event that is now set for April 13th to 17th. Vice President Belcher is hard at work calling entertainment companies and negotiating contracts. "After negotiating with companies, we have reached an agreement and I hope that the Budgetary Committee will approve the budget I submitted and will be able to bring a good spring event to Concord that the students will enjoy" said Vice President Belcher.
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