Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies
NEWS

ASG modifies student organization funding

By Kelly Higginson, Senior Staff Writer

The Associated Student Government (ASG) Funding Committee has been funding more than 230 student organizations with the same budget for the past eight years. Today, with 100 more student organizations in need of funding than there were eight years ago, ASG has decided to allocate their budget in a different, riskier way.

If ASG chose to use the same funding cycle as last year, student organizations, activities and programs would have had to cut 40 percent of their funding.

Student organizations request the most money for their annual operating costs during the fall funding cycle.

Monday, Sept. 22, after several days of hearings in front of the ASG Funding Committee, more than 230 organizations received a total of $544,000 in funding for the 2014-2015 year. In addition, Club Sports received $300,000 to allocate across the 47 club sports organizations, according to the ASG Fall 2014 Funding Cycle Press Release.

ASG Vice President of Student Organizations, senior Nathan Lombardi, spent hours trying to work out a method that would keep all student organizations funded.

"If we wouldn't have changed the allocation of our budget, the organizations would have not had nearly enough funding, effectively killing 220 student organizations," Lombardi said. "I didn't want that to happen."

In an effort to maintain student organization funding, Lombardi decided to cut ASG's operating budget by $20,000.

"ASG will just have to be more efficient in how we classify our costs," Lombardi said.

Lombardi also said a change in Miami's budget promptedstudent organizations to request morefunding from ASG rather thanvarious academic departments, which they have done in past years.

The hearings lasted a total of 36 hours and were heard by a committee of six ASG senators,as well as seven student body members.

"I feel this was the most efficient funding cycle as of yet, despite a new method of accounting at the university," Lombardi said.

Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter

According to the press release, the cycle had a significant increase in both funds requested as well as the average amount requested by each organization.

Although Lombardi anticipates positive results from the new funding cycle, he also accounts for possible problems in the future.

"We might not have enough money swept back to fund everyone for next semester, which is when we will have to go into emergency funds," Lombardi said.

According to the press release, if that is the case, the Funding Committee will have to identify

Read More

Trending