Welcome back! After a month long break, I am sure everyone was ready to come back to campus to see all of your classmates, even if you’re not ready to begin classes. As many of you were relishing in your last days of freedom, the Executive Board returned to campus a few days early to work on the club budgets submitted for the 2016 fiscal year. The Executive Board and the Student Activities Resource People met this past weekend to go over each budget line-by-line to approve club programs and funding for the upcoming year. While budgeting is a time consuming process, it is amazing to see all of the our clubs’ future plans and to reflect on their accomplishments in the past fiscal year. Our Union is completely student run, and we are one of the few student unions in the nation that operates this way. This makes me proud. We have accomplished so much together in the past year, and budgeting is always a great way to remind us of the exciting things we have to look forward to in the year to come.
The budgeting process began in the middle of last semester when the Executive Board representatives met with their clubs to discuss their budgets for the upcoming year. In these discussions the E-Board members help their club officers develop an effective budget and gather information about the priorities of the club and the importance behind each line item. Then, during study days in the fall semester, the Executive Board meets to review and finalize the Union Administration budgets and the varsity athletics budgets.
The Board is then allowed to enjoy Winter Break like everyone else! However, we return a few days early to review all the club budgets that have been submitted. These budgets are reviewed line-by-line in order to make sure that students’ money is being spent justly and appropriately to benefit the most students possible. Some programs are approved, some partially approved, and some denied, but each program is looked at one by one by the E-Board so an appropriate decision can be made.
These club budgets were released to club officers for review on Sunday January 27, and any club appeal that has been submitted will be reviewed later today to allow for calculation of the activity fee. These appeals will then be heard by the E-Board this Saturday.
The E-Board will determine a recommendation for the Student Activity Fee for the upcoming school year based on the budgetary decisions made. The Union Annual Report Committee will then insert all of the final numbers from budgeting into a document, the Union Annual Report. The preliminary version of this report is then presented to the Student Senate which votes whether or not to approve this recommendation.
If the UAR is approved, it is forwarded to the Vice President for Student Life. After reviewing