Student Government Associations’ (SGA) executive board has opted to request $5,000 from Webster’s administration due to a need for funds in the last few weeks of the semester.
SGA President Katie Maxwell said due to the need for funds and short amount of time left in the semester, SGA decided to request the administration grant the full amount of funds and then will decide how to divide the funds between clubs based on necessity.
In a February interview with The Journal, Stewart said the allocation from the university to SGA has remained the same since 2004. The money has been split up between the programming pool, student grant fund and the readership program. SGA divides leftover funds between student organizations.
At the end of each academic year, unspent student organization funds would rollover to the next year in a “bubble.” Stewart said the bubble was spent down until this semester, it no longer existed.
Stewart said her understanding of where the leftover funds would go at the end of the semester was that the remainder would go back to the university.
At the Spring Delegates’ Agenda the administration responded to the Delegates’ request for an adjustment to the Student Government allocation fund. The administration tied the allocation to enrollment numbers and also offered a $5,000 injection of funds into the current semester’s budget.
Student organizations were able to request funds but at first opted not to. In an interview in March with The Journal, Maxwell said student government had decided to only request the funds for immediate needs in an effort to be more financially responsible.
Maxwell said SGA changed their view on requesting the full $5,000 due to a need for funds from clubs who have exhausted their funding in the last weeks of the semester.
“Initially, we were concerned with the implication that requesting the full amount would have when we’ve been pushing student organizations to be fiscally responsible this semester,” Maxwell said. “Our first thought was that we need to only request the amount that we need so that the rest can be used elsewhere.”
Maxwell said the need of funds in such a short time period made requesting the funds the best option for SGA for the time being.
SGA decided on April 8 to create an appeal process for clubs that have run out of money.
Director of Student Activities Jenn Stewart said the requested a report detailing how the $5,000 was spent and which clubs received the funds at the end of the semester. She said the deadline for clubs to apply for money from the newly made available funds is April 25.
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