The Associated Student Government (ASG) met Tuesday to hear the budget of $210,262 for Miami Activities and Programming (MAP).
Director of Finance for MAP Travis Peraza walked the senate through the budget and explained some of the events the group plans to hold.
Such events include Spring Fest, Movie Night, Family Weekend, Mega Fair and Homecoming.
Sophomore senator Katie Caprez said she had concerns about certain aspects of the budget.
"Could you tell me why you need a $3,000 marketing and PR budget for events?" Caprez asked.
Secretary for Public Relations Allison Gnaegy who also serves as Director of Marketing for MAP explained the importance of marketing for recently-formed organization.
"MAP was just formed last March and not many students know about the organization yet," Gnaegy said. "The $3,000 you see under marketing and PR goes towards promoting each event and getting word out."
Several senators including Secretary for Alumni Affairs Conor Nelson had concerns about the amount of money allocated towards food and passouts, such as t-shirts, which are given away at events.
"One of the biggest critiques we had when restructuring budgets, were the amounts spent on things like t-shirts," Nelson said.
According to the budget, 700 t-shirts for around $9 each are set to be purchased for homecoming and have been bought for the event in past years.
"For homecoming last year we cut the budget from $35,000 to $17,000 and a large portion of that was for 700 t-shirts," Gnaegy said. "We felt t-shirts would be the best, most influential passout. We now get blocked by our advisor when we try to buy passouts. All purchases are audited by our advisor before we are allowed access to any accounts."
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Nelson also suggested not putting dates on event shirts. He said in past years, there have been extra event shirts and they are more difficult to pass out at a later time when they have a specific date on them. Gnaegy said this was a good suggestion the group would consider for the future.
After hearing concerns about the budgets from the senate, Vice President for Student Organizations Kyle Hees explained that MAP is a different kind of student organization.
"The budget for MAP has already been decided by higher up authority at the university," Hees said. "MAP essentially works under different rules than other organizations on campus."
Senior senator Drew Doggett agreed with this statement saying MAP is kind of an exception when it comes to student organizations. They are in charge of setting up events pre-approved by the university that will better the entire student body.
With a roll call vote, the senate voted to approve and pass the MAP budget.
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