University Student Government President Kevin Hampton said Tuesday that funding for five student clubs, whose initial budget requests were questioned Sunday at a USG meeting, will be settled next Sunday, Oct. 25.
Hampton said a number of club representatives contacted him Monday and Tuesday after learning from TommieMedia that their proposed budget allocations were questioned at Sunday’s meeting.
“It’s not that we are refusing or denying these clubs their money,” Hampton said. “They will be allocated money if their requests are appropriate.”
At Sunday’s meeting, USG questioned details in the budgets proposed by the Advertising Federation, American Marketing Association, Art Attack, Band Club and the Public Relations Student Society of America.
After budget details were questioned, USG Finance Chair Brady Narloch withdrew a motion to approve club budgets “in order to give the [finance] committee another week to look into those clubs’ allocations further,” Hampton said. “They have taken a week to look into the original amount requested and look at such things as the amount that the club has in their rollover budget from last semester. That way they can judge accurately if they need to give that club more money or the amount they requested.
“The committee will review those [budgets] that weren’t so sure, and we will come to an official vote this Sunday,” he said. “Those funds will be allocated at that time, and they will be allocated money.”
Hampton said a student club that is not satisfied with its budget allocation can appeal USG’s decision.
“If a club feels they were wronged in the process there’s an appeals process through the finance committee,” he said. “So there’s always other options.
“We are never denying funding to any club or organization who wants money for a legitimate reason and has good intentions for that money,” Hampton said. “We’d never do that.”
Brent Fischer can be reached at bafischer@stthomas.edu
In order to alleviate some of the concerns I have been hearing about the USG Finance Committee fall allocation procedure I would like to reiterate this point:
Eligible clubs will not be allocated additional funds this semester if and only if their reimbursable expenses are less than the sum of their projected revenue and internal balance. Please do not hesitate to contact me at blnarloch@stthomas.edu with further questions/concerns.
In addition, I will be alerting clubs of their allocation amount once I hear back from the Controller’s Office regarding the current internal balances of the clubs.
I appreciate the clarification. This has been a frustrating situation for all parties involved and I just hope that moving forward we can come to a solution which allows our communication clubs to carry on with the career development activities which are at the heart of what we do.
my main complaint about the whole process is the amount of time that it takes for clubs to actually find out about their funding. We are already to the end of October and no one knows how much money they actually have for funding so it is hard to start programming. The budget process needs to start much sooner and USG needs to hold special meetings immediatly after the deadline to get the budgets hammered out so that clubs can actually function for the whole semester instead of only a month.
Cameron is 100% correct in his statement. The decision makers for USG, club presidents and club boards are in place before the semester ends in the spring. This process should be finished before the semester begins so clubs can actually do planning for the club. How can the club function when it has no idea how much money it has to spend?