On Monday, President of the Union Peter Baldwin announced that the Executive Board completed the budgeting process for all Union-funded clubs—including the sporting organizations that are classified as clubs. While the remaining budget components, including the administrative and athletic budgets, are quite monetarily significant; Baldwin estimated that the E-Board’s budgeting work is nearly three-fourths complete.
One of Baldwin’s chief platforms while running was that he felt that Union funds should be used for activities and events that benefit the entire membership of the Union over those that just benefit the members of one organization. This was a message echoed in the e-mail sent to club presidents after the budgeting was completed: “Activities that benefit only those members of the organizations did not fare well while an event enhancing a sense of community was set as a priority.”
The PU also said that there are over 100 Union-funded clubs and that the Union primarily operates on the student activity fee. He said that clubs that traditionally had not been using all of the funding allotted to them saw cuts, down to a level closer to what they actually spent. He told presidents, “We used a fairly conservative prediction, which meant that even though an activity may have been the quintessential activity the Union would fund, it may have been denied due to the fact that we had a responsibility to maximize the utility of the student population’s activity fee dollars.”
Baldwin said that the E-Board was originally predicting that club budgeting would take three days, but they instead finished in two. He said that the online budgeting system definitely aided in this, adding, “Everything went well [and] without a hitch.” While the online system was also used last year, he pointed out that E-Board members now had experience with the system when they began to evaluate the budgets for the upcoming year.
While it has been a somewhat contentious issue, the possible changes to the Rathskeller and McNeil Room offerings are not part of the annual budgeting process. Formal renovation plans have yet to go to the Executive Board for approval, but Baldwin expects that this will happen soon; he said that some renovations may begin over spring break, with much more work being possible during the summer break.
Since not all budgeting has been completed, the amount for the Union activity fee for next year has not yet been determined. The announcement of the upcoming fee is still some weeks away.
Any club that wishes to appeal the decisions on its budget has until 11 pm tonight to submit the appeal online. The appeals will be heard this weekend.
