The Student Budget Committee (SBC) of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) released its mid-year report Jan. 29 detailing Fall 2005 spending, which totaled $399,000. The report also listed various SBC policy changes.
“Funding for last semester was pretty usual,” said Treasurer of the WSA Mathew Ball ’08. “We’re expecting a similar pattern of funding [for the spring] semester: lots of requests in the beginning, not so many near the end.”
In the report, student groups are divided into seven categories: Activism, Identity, Performance, Program House, Publication, Sports, and Other. Program Houses spent the least money, $8,006, while the largest amount of funding went to “Other,” which received $210,643.
The two biggest allocations were to the senior class officers, who received $75,417, more funding than any other individual student group, and the Argus, which received $30,610. The third largest allocation was the Traverse Square After School Program, with $5,194. Meanwhile, several groups, including the Food Recovery Coalition and the Social Committee, did not use any SBC funding in the fall semester.
To minimize inefficiency, the SBC began an itemization procedure during the 2004-2005 academic year, funding student groups for particular needs or events, rather than allocating a general budget to each group.
“In the past, money has been left over in certain budgets,” said President of the WSA Jesse Watson ’06.
Beginning this semester, the SBC can now reassume money that has not been spent by a student group. According to Watson, reassumed funds could make up to $10,000 available again to other student groups that need funding. For now, the SBC can reclaim unused funds only with a group’s volunteered permission.
The SBC has also eliminated much confusion for student groups by combining the previously interchangeable Initial Allocations Request Form and the Supplemental Request Form, creating a Single-Budget Allocations Request Form.
“On the other side that students don’t see, this also makes processing the checks a lot easier, and it helps out our office staff,” Ball said.
The SBC predicts the rest of the academic year will see fewer funding requests than the amount received at the beginning of the Fall 2005 semester. Funding also spiked toward the end of the last semester, with student groups requesting money for the spring.
“Obviously we will receive far fewer requests than last semester because many of the groups we fund only need money at the beginning of the year,” reads the SBC’s website.
Each year, the SBC receives about $580,000 from students’ activity fees. About $100,000 pays for the WSA office expenses, the Crowell Concert Series, the Film Series, and the New York Times Readership Program. The remaining $480,000 is exclusively for the funding of student groups. The SBC encourages student groups to seek alternative sources of funding in order to be economically efficient.
Statistics of the mid-year report can be found on the WSA’s website, at http://www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/about/minutes/1-29_06sbcmidyear.html. The SBC is currently compiling information to indicate the amount of money each student group requested versus how much each group was allotted.
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