The AUSA Senate approved its 2004-2005 budget last Tuesday, allocating $213,213 to licensed student organizations.
Although the total allocation to student organizations is higher than last year’s $197,005, the popularity of the Cherrington Global Scholars Program affected the amount of money that the Senate could assign.
“There will be a record amount of students studying abroad this year and in years to come due to the Cherrington Global Scholars Program,” explained Sen. Amber Kirchenschlager, chair of the finance committee. “These students don’t pay a student activity fee to DU, so we had to account for that deficit in our budget.”
The Senate and the finance committee look to adjust the program to avoid such a large deficit in later years. As for the 2004-2005 budget, a “cushion” of $50,000 has been reserved to deal with the deficit.
“[The cushion] will ensure that we are able to pay a deficit from the large amount of students studying abroad as well as any other deficit from an organization,” said Kirchenschlager. “Anything that is left over will go to back to the orgs the next year. So, while we’re taking a hit this year, it will ensure financial success in the near future.”
This roll-over, however, does not apply to the money the student organizations do not spend. Unspent money makes its way back to the Senate.
“We did the best we could with the funds we had,” said Sen. J.J. Simon.
Because of the low amount of funds, all new organizations were given $1,000. While the new budget passed without incident, the Senate defeated a request to add senators to the Senate 12-2. The recent breakup of the Department of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering into the Department of Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) raised concerns about departments and schools being underrepresented in the Senate. The Department of Engineering and Computer Sciences would like two Senators to represent them next year.
Jim Fogelman, dean of the Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, said, “It might be a good idea because the interests, direction, and goals of a department are quite distinct. For what the Senate does for undergraduates, they should be represented,” he said. “On the other hand, there are only 151 majors in the school. That number would only equal GSIS.”
Fogelman went on to say that if GSIS is represented (which they currently are not) then the Engineering/Computer Sciences should be, and vice versa. Senators also expressed their concerns about adding members and the manageability of a larger Senate before they deliberated.
The senate will research the matter more thoroughly before any new decisions are made.
Applications due Friday for the upcoming senate elections can be obtained at www.du.edu/orgs/senate or the Student Involvement Center.
