Posted on March 29, 2007
The Student Senate met Tuesday evening for the 2008 fiscal year’s Front End Budget approval night. For four-and-a-half hours, senators and representatives from the 10 FEB organizations discussed and debated the allocation of thousands of dollars.
The total amount set aside for FEB was $395,068, while the total amount requested from the organizations was $378,793. From the requested amount, $5,242.59 was cut during this past FEB weekend, leaving $21,517.33 for next year’s contingency fund. The contingency fund is allocated for non-FEB organizations on campus that can apply for up to $2,000 a semester from SGA once they have exhausted their own means of funding, said Sen. David Allen (Sr.).
Several budget amendments were proposed throughout the night by Sen. Geary Cox most of which were passed with little to no debate.
The night’s most heated debate was over an amendment proposed by Cox to cut UPB’s novelty events funds of $14,235.50.
“I’m convinced that we can better fund more than seven organizations, the minimum we can fund with $14,000,” Cox said.
UPB execs disagreed.
“This is not something new, it’s something we’ve done in the past,” UPB President Randi Sponenberg said. “We’ve done novelty events in the past and they’ve been a huge hit. This is something we know from our research that this is what JMU students want.”
In response to UPB’s statements, Bennet propped an amendment to the $0 amendment. He suggested reducing the $14,000 to $5,500, instead of cutting the novelty event funds all together.
“I still feel that UPB can still bring great events with $5,500,” Bennett said.
“I talked with a couple of other senators and I thought $5,500 would be a nice compromise.”
However, UPB and Sen. Elizabeth Anderson (Sr.), amongst others, did not feel this amount was sufficient.
“We’re not even giving half of their original amendment,” Anderson said. “I think we need to realize that the costs of things are a lot. I don’t think UPB would arbitrarily put $14,000 in their budget.”
The senate voted against the $5,500-amendment by a huge majority. This was followed by another amendment to the $0-amendment by Sen. Matt Winer (Jr.) who proposed to give UPB $9,000 for its novelty events and $5,000 to their musical events budget in order to prevent any loss for UPB. Despite UPB’s willingness to compromise to this amendment, there was still strong opposition among the senators.
“I rise in strong opposition to everything,” Allen said. “I have the utmost respect for UPB, I think what you guys do is amazing. However, I will not stand here and not say that I don’t know what other students want.”
The $9,000-$5,000-amendment failed when the majority voted against it. The senate moved back to debate about the original $0-amendment.
Coordinator for UPB, Sarah Sunde, advocated that whatever decision the Senate came to, UPB would continue to host the novelty events.
“It would adversely impact the students by raising [prices] — movie tickets, concert tickets — to compensate [for the budget money loss],” Sunde said.
Sen. Julianne Maguire (Sr.) fought in defense of UPB.
“UPB does so much on campus; they’re so important,” Maguire said. “To devastate that organization in such a way would feel irresponsible to do. I do think that we should make sure that clubs are responsible in their spending, but it’s unfair to ask UPB to tighten their belt so much more than any other organization.”
The senate took a standing vote on the $0-amendment where the 33 senators against the amendment won the majority. This finalized the $14,235.50 given to UPB.
“I know there was a lot of confusion because this is an event that we’ve always done,” Bobrowski said. “I’m really happy that we won the money back because the bulk of our programming money is in student services.”
To become an FEB organization, groups must come to SGA with a presentation that proves that they have an overreaching impact on campus, Bennett said. Groups chosen are required to attend a FEB goal review day conducted in the fall of every even-numbered year, with their proposed budget.
“I think all the organizations that had budgets amended were impacted,” Cox said. “I have a lot of respect for the treasurers for these organizations, they’ve got a long road ahead of them, and I think they do their best for us with a budget that they think is as tight as possible.”
