Student Association’s general assembly reviewed the Finance Board’s funding decisions in about 30 minutes Monday, making one of the fastest and most efficient deliberations in recent years.

More than 30 representatives from Syracuse University student organizations attended Monday night’s SA general assembly deliberations on proposed funding for spring activities.

The meeting took place at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Maxwell Auditorium.

One of SA’s main responsibilities is deciding how to allocate the student activity fee to the organizations that apply for it. At the meeting, Comptroller Stephen DeSalvo released budget determinations for more than 100 student organizations. Assemblymembers then discussed and decided whether to approve specific budgets.

Some of the organizations who were awarded the most funding include The College Republicans, which will receive $24,710 for a speaker event; First Year Players, which will receive $23,309 for its spring musical; and the National Pan-Hellenic Council; which will receive $36,401 for a speaker event.

The Finance Board looks at student organization budgets and makes a recommendation to fully fund, partially fund or not fund each one. For it to be official, the budget must be approved by the assembly, DeSalvo said.

The budget hearing on Monday was one of the fastest and most efficient, DeSalvo said.

About half of the student activity fee was approved for organization funding at the meeting. Many organizations were denied funding because of minor technicalities in their budget proposals, he said.

The Haitian Americans Student Association was denied $50,000 for a concert because the organization missed its budget hearing and the cost per student was too high.

The Hillel Jewish Student Union was denied $33,598 for a spring concert because of mismatched event date confirmations.

The National Society of Collegiate Scholars’ proposal for $18,481 for an event called “Integrity Week” was denied because the amount was out of the group’s allocated funding range based on DeSalvo’s financial tier system. The system places SU organizations into categories based on how much funding they are eligible to apply for.

Student organizations are eligible to appeal general assembly budget decisions online through Orgsync. Organizations must turn appeals in by this Thursday, DeSalvo said.

“I think we saw today how great of a job the Finance Board has been doing and how fair the budget process has really been,” he said.

After the hearing, assemblymembers discussed how to promote SA presidential elections to the student body. Board of Elections and Membership Chair Jenn Bacolores said she hopes 30 percent of the student body will vote this year, which would be an increase from 26.1 percent in last year’s election.

“I think with the amount of candidates we have we will be able to reach out to a lot of demographics that have probably never been hit before,” she said.

Students will be able to vote for SA president through MySlice. SA members will also staff polling stations around campus, at The Warehouse and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Marshall Hall, Bacolores said.

“We are trying to go to places that are very accessible to students,” Bacolores said.

SA’s weeklong community service event called “Impact Week” kicked off Monday with a volunteer event at the Salvation Army. Tuesday’s event is all about getting the student body to vote in the presidential election, SA Chief of Staff Janine Savage said.

In other business, SA will be providing student transportation to major cities like Boston, Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia for $100 round trip during Thanksgiving break.

The next SA meeting will be held Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the Maxwell Auditorium.

 

Published on November 6, 2012 at 3:01 am

Contact Anna: aegiles@syr.edu