The Student Senate approved the Budget and Appropriations Committee’s $1.5 million academic and student organization budgets Tuesday night.
Committee chairman Joseph Michaels broke down the 2013-2014 fiscal year budgets for 21 academic organizations and 48 student organizations.
According to the budget, $498,888 out of a requested $533,480 was allocated to Student Government-funded academic organizations and $999,425 out of a requested $986,950 was granted to SG-funded student organizations.
Out of $34,592 in leftover funds from academic organizations’ budgets, $12,890 were given to student organizations. The rest of the money will be added to the amended 2013-2014 Activity and Service Fee budget.
The organizations can pull from the money starting July 1.
“We want to keep funding them in a fiscally responsible way,” Michaels said after the meeting.
This year, the budget saw a 6.5 percent increase in organization funding, which was determined by former committee chairwoman Christina Bonarrigo last summer. Michaels will work with SG this summer to determine the 2014-2015 increase for a $19 million budget.
The increase comes from a bump in students’ activities fees.
He said he was most proud of the Senate’s budget code revisions, which allowed organizations to increase their funds spent on food from 8 percent to 15 percent.
Michaels said for the first time since he has been on the committee, all decisions made by the committee were unanimous.
“As chair, I made it a point to be unbiased and make sure the students were benefiting,” he said.
Contact Colleen Wright at cwright@alligator.org.
Student Government Budget and Appropriations Committee Chairman Joseph Michaels presents the 2013-2014 academic and student organization budgets to the Student Senate on Tuesday night.
