Student senate sets budgets for next fiscal year
Courtesy Photo / Alyssa Tierney Alyssa Tierney, Vice-President of Finance for the Student Senate
Feb 3, 2011
The Student Senate at Grand Valley State University is working to finalize its budget for the 2011-2012 academic year.
The Student Senate, which draws from the university’s Student Life Fund, proposed a budget in a meeting last Thursday. Student Senate President Jarrett Martus said GVSU administrators are rarely involved in determining how that money is spent.
“They pretty much entrust the whole process to us and as long as we don’t do anything drastic they don’t really step into the process,” he said.
For the year, Student Senate will allocate $1 million.
“It is an allocation from the Board of Trustees,” said Alyssa Tierney, vice-president of finance for the Student Senate. “The Student Life Fund was given to the Student Senate to allocate to student organizations for the purpose of on campus programming.”
The Student Senate considers the size of the student organization council and the amount of money left over from the previous year when they give money to an organization.
Tierney said for the 2011-2012 year, sports will receive $358,000, a 2.3 percent increase.
“The rising fees we have because facilities are costing more to be used for practices and games, and coaching fees are rising, and there’s also an estimated six new groups that are going to be joining the sports,” she said.
The budget provides no monetary allotment for game entry fees, although there is a proposition to charge $3 if any team makes the championship game. In the past, Student Senate has been asked to fund tickets for teams that made the championship game. If Athletics were to ask Student Senate to fund the games, the money would come out of the Reserve Fund, an $86,500 allotment that contains rollover dollars and pays for programming outside the fixed budget.
Funding for Greek Life and campus traditions were also increased. Senator Logan Brenk said the cultural budget for the year will be $75,000, a 15 percent decrease from the previous year due to leftover funds from last year, loss of organizations and the lack of funding requests.
Student Senate will hold a vote on the budget on Feb. 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 2204 in the Kirkhof Center. The Senate Finance Committee meets on Tuesdays at 6 p.m. in Room 1104 in the Kirkhof Center and welcome all students who would like to discuss the budget to come to the meeting.
