The Student Association's clubs and organizations were given an unexpected fiscal boost when SA Treasurer Naazli Ahmed announced a $10,000 surplus in the club budget at the SA Senate meeting Monday, Feb. 18. The money will be funneled into the senate's account to be distributed among the clubs.
"I decided that an addition is going to the funds that the senate already had," said Ahmed. "So now there is an additional $10,000 to be distributed."
According to SA President Christian Oliver, the surplus resulted from a higher student enrollment than SA projected. The student government determines its semester funds by multiplying the $69.75 mandatory student activities fee by the number of undergraduate students enrolled at UB. They then draft a budget with consideration to payroll for staff and activities and events such as seasonal Fests and "The Distinguished Speaker Series."
The senate had anticipated the extra revenue because the annual SA budget is intentionally underestimated to prevent creating programs and activities SA may not be able to subsidize in the future.
"We do this in order to be conservative," said Ahmed. "We don't want to spend money before it materializes. For some reason, if the money doesn't come in, if students don't pay their fee, we don't want to tell the clubs that we have to cut back money."
Oliver agreed, saying it is better to announce the amount of money available as it comes rather than generating an incorrect figure and having clubs develop budgets around funds that may not be available to them.
"We don't want to make promises and then have to go back on them," said Oliver.
The senate distributes funds to SA's clubs and organizations at the beginning of every semester by evaluating the club's proposed needs and voting on how much each club will receive. All clubs are informed before proposing their budgets that additional funding may be available as the semester proceeds.
The system is fair, said Ahmed, because budget decisions are made by a group rather than a single person, and as long as club requests are reasonable, funds are usually granted.
"It is much less arbitrary and better to have the money allocated through the senate," she said.
The UB Robotics club was the first to come before the senate to request additional funding after the announcement of the surplus. After a 7-to-3 vote in favor of the club, UB Robotics received $900 to purchase various software and hardware to continue ongoing projects and compete in various competitions.
All clubs can go and make proposals for supplementary funds during senate meetings, the next of which is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 25 at 6 p.m. in 317 Student Union. Any leftover money will be added to SA's budget for the fall 2002 semester.
