Here's how to appeal your club’s budget

This weekend the Executive Board participated in our annual budgeting extravaganza. This budgeting session is one of our main purposes as a Board. A few weeks ago in my Derby, I explained the budgeting process in detail.

At this point, if you are a funded club, your budget has been reviewed and returned to you. There should be comments on anything in your budget that was not approved.

If you have any questions about your budget, the first thing you should do is reach out to your Executive Board representative. They were there during the budgeting process and should have detailed notes about the discussion for each decision we made. Keep in mind, your representative is not solely responsible for approving or denying any budget. Most decisions, if not all, come down to a simple majority vote. Representatives can help explain the rationale behind decisions, whether they agree or not.

If you feel a program was misunderstood or new information is now available, you do have the option to appeal your budget. To appeal your budget, you must submit a request. Applications for appeals for Fiscal Year 2021 are due by Wednesday, November 13 at noon and decisions will take place on Saturday, November 16. When you submit a request for an appeal, we ask that you list what program you are appealing so we can review it prior to the appeals process. Remember, when you appeal your budget, the entire budget is open for review, not just the program you appealed. If you do choose to appeal your budget, you should meet again with your Executive Board representative and Student Activities Resource Person to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Clubs are not allowed to be present during budgeting, but during appeals a representative from your club must come and present to the Board on the item being appealed. The representative will be dismissed from the meeting and the Board will deliberate in private and make a decision. After the appeals process, all budgets are final. If you need additional funds or you want to add a program, you will have to submit a proposal to the Executive Board during the next fiscal year. I hope this provided some helpful information! Feel free to reach out to pu@rpi.edu with any other questions.