By Laura Sanicola and Cate Carrejo

Fall 2016 Student Activities Fee Budget SLC Presentation | Financial Supplement to Fall 2016 Budget Allocations | Budget Links

ver Over $31,000 is available for clubs after Spring budget day, which can be put toward Fall 2016 budget requests. The Budget was approved by the committee in full at the Student Life Council Meeting last Wednesday.

The committee was chaired by Elizabeth Crennan, FCRH ’19 non-voting budget committee chairman and vice president of finance of the United Student Government (USG).

Clubs started out with $480,674.00 and requested $549,507.95 for the spring semester.

The committee allocated $290,164.79 out of the $298,353.48 requested for referendum clubs and $143, 895.44 out of the $235,044.47 requested for general clubs.

Referendum clubs received 67 percent of the total budget and general clubs received 33 percent, but no new referendum clubs were approved for fall 2016.

Though some clubs managed without major budgeting issues, many clubs were denied the entirety of their requested budget for reasons outlined in the financial supplement.

Clubs that received no funding due to failure to submit an operations packet include The Ampersand, Circle K, Deutscher Studenten Klub, The College Republicans and the Jazz Collective.

Overall, clubs were sanctioned a total of $11,067.03.

The most common reason for clubs to be sanctioned was listing dates outside of programming dates. Twelve clubs had 49 line items denied due to incorrect dates. Seven clubs were sanctioned for not receiving an operations packet.

Notably, neither the College Democrats nor the College Republicans received a budget large enough to cover their speaker requests. The College Democrats were only approved to purchase wristbands as they were denied a majority of their approximate $15,000 requested budget for unverifiable documentation. The political clubs have faced numerous problems ensuring speakers in recent years.

The individual club budgets and aggregates were presented last Wednesday, but OrgSync has not updated clubs of their budgets or sanctions and clubs have not all been notified as of the following Tuesday night.

Philip Bedard, GSB ‘16 and current treasurer of Circle K, said he had not been informed of his club’s budget for Spring 2016 yet.

“I had thought we hadn’t handed in our operations packet but I haven’t heard anything yet,” Bedard said.

Clubs will have an opportunity to appeal for more funds in the coming weeks following an email from Crennan.

Several other important initiatives were announced at the meeting as well, including an update on last semester’s racial bias incidents. The investigation into the Nov. 13 incident involving loud, repeated racist language and chants from a party at an off campus residence has ended, according to Dean of Students Christopher Rodgers. “Appropriate action has been taken,” said Rodgers.

Rodgers also commented on the changes to the campus dining establishments following the announcement of Aramark replacing Sodexo as Fordham’s catering service. “There will be some capital improvements, changes… in The Grille and rebranding in Queens Court deli.” In a separate interview, Deming Yaun, Fordham’s dining services contract liaison, stated that changes to The Grille, Fordham’s most popular on-campus dining establishment, would be minimal. “The formats will stay very similar [and] popular menu items will stay very similar. We can keep it moving forward in the coming years,” Yaun told The Ram.

Finally, Rodgers touched on the possible renovations of the McGinley Student Center. Fordham’s Continuous University Strategic Planning Committee (CUSP) called for a new student center in the strategic framework draft released earlier this semester, an idea to which Rodgers seemed receptive. “It will take a while, but it is needed,” said Rodgers at the meeting.

Assistant Dean for Freshmen Greer Jason announced a new program “to bring underprivileged high school students to learn about technology and entrepreneurship.” The high school students will live with university students in O’Hare Hall over the summer to integrate into the Fordham community during the program.