While $74,000 seems like a large chunk of money to many college students, Student Government Association has planned out and approved how it is going to spend that much money for the 2006-07 academic year.
The budget was approved at the Student Senate meeting Wednesday afternoon.
To cover one of Team Lisec's platform issues, $2,000 was added to the communication category. Advertising in the Daily News went up from $7,000 to $9,780, and money for the Pride Guide increased from $6,881.84 to $8,000. The Pride Guide increase will cover the growing expenses of producing it, but the advertising increase is so Team Lisec can spotlight campus organizations in the newspaper every other week.
"I thought that it was a good budget and true to their platform," Sen. Mike Grembowicz said. "It allocated more funds for communication and awareness."
However, two items under the communications category, advertising in the Ball State directory and Greek telephone directory, were eliminated. Those cuts were smart moves, Grembowicz said. He participated in an ad-hoc committee that discussed the budget before it was presented to senate.
"It's really sound," he said. "They definitely went through it and cleaned house. They cut out the B-Book funding. That was worthless."
Almost $6,000 is budgeted for copying, supplies, phones, postage and general expenses. That trims almost $300 off of those areas of the budget from last year. Those expenses are necessary, Treasurer John Boone said, even though some things, such as the phones, are expensive.
"You would not believe how much it costs to run those things," he said. "We have seven different phones with seven different lines."
Another large portion of the budget, about $5,500, is in the Executive Discretionary fund. This is a "catch-all" category, Boone said, which could cover shortages in other areas of the budget, such as co-sponsorship or advertising.
All those purchases are approved by Kay Bales, director of Student Life, and Boone said she wouldn't approve any purchases that were not necessary.
"When people see the discretionary fund, people are going to be like 'they are going to just buy a lot and use it themselves,'" Boone said. "If we try to we will just get told no."
Another $30,000 pays the executive stipend. All executive members receive tuition money, and Student Senate voted in October to place a limit on the amount each executive receives.
Co-sponsorship funds are being decreased by $1,000 to $11,000, as the fund has not been fully used in the past half decade. Boone said he hoped more groups would get involved and they would use up all the funding.
"I want to get more people involved in co-sponsorship," he said. "I didn't like taking money off, but I had no other place to take it from."
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