Despite working with a substantially larger budget, the Student Budget Committee (SBC) has allocated less this year than it did last year, when the group was financially hamstrung by a much tighter budget.

The SBC began the academic year with $612,000 to allocate to student activities, a higher number this year as a result of the annual student activity fee, which increased by $28. The committee came to the table this semester with $356,000 remaining. After committing $110,000 to Senior Cocktails and Spring Fling, the SBC still had $246,000 on its hands as of January. It plans to spend the money by May.

“The SBC has not intentionally spent less than in years past,” said SBC Chair Gianna Palmer ’10. “If it seems as though we have been spending less, it is possible that groups were requesting less. Numbers can vary from year to year.”

Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) President Matt Ball ’08, who chaired the SBC during the 2005-2006 school year, thinks that there has been an unusually low level of requests this semester.

“Something really ironic has happened,” Ball said. “At the end of 2005, we had to turn people away since we didn’t have enough money. Last year, they had to take money back from people. This year, we’ve got more money, but now requests have gone down. There just have not been a lot of requests.”

Last semester, student groups received only 80 percent of the funding that they asked for, and with the surplus of money, some student groups are questioning why their budgets were cut.

According to SBC internal records, WESU FM, which is one of the University’s highest-funded student groups, received $21,653 for the fall semester: $3,000 less than last year and $11,000 less than the amount requested by the group.

“I think it’s interesting that we voted to raise the student activity fee [last year], but we aren’t getting as much for student activities,” said WESU President Jeff Wong ’08. “I think it’s a bit confusing that they have $246,000 left and they are spending less money.”

Palmer maintains that the SBC is trying to be conscious of how much it spends.

“We’re just trying to be conscious of our yearly budget throughout the entire year,” she said. “We’re trying to remain as fiscally responsible as we can, and not be spending without checking how much we have left.”

In past years, the SBC has turned towards spending increasingly less money during fall semesters. According to annual midyear reports, in the fall of 2005, the SBC spent roughly 72 percent of its funds. In 2006, first-semester spending was 57 percent. Last semester, the SBC spent 42 percent of its budget.

Palmer also explained that, as part of a new process, the committee checks in with groups that have larger budgets, such as WESU and The Argus, and assessing their monetary situations in the middle of the academic year. She said that she is still waiting to hear back from WESU.

Another component that faced cuts was the New York Times Readership Program. Because its funding had to be determined in the fall, there is no way to add more money on the program at this point. However, Palmer emphasized that the SBC previously did not have to fund the entire program.

“We don’t want to have to fund the New York Times’ budget in full every year,” she said. “If we commit to funding it one year, that could hurt student groups down the line, because we’ll have less money.”

Palmer said that the SBC would welcome other University financial sectors to assume more of the monetary burden of the readership program, though she recognized that the resources are not necessarily available.

Any unused funds remaining at the end of the academic year may be transferred to next year’s budget, Palmer said.

“If there was a surplus, rolling it over to next year’s budget would not be out of the question,” she explained. “It would have to be discussed with the entire assembly and the Executive Committee.”