By Aislinn Keely
Over the course of a 10-hour day, the Student Activities Budget Committee, a sub-committee of United Student Government (USG), allocated $519,880 to 85 clubs at the Rose Hill campus at the close of last semester.
The committee received $684,997.73 in requests, forcing them to allocate funds to 72.8 percent of requests.
The committee traditionally computes the student activities budget themselves, without the assistance of an outside office. Using previous enrollment numbers for the coming semester supplied by the Office of Enrollment as well as the office’s projections, the committee estimates the class size for the coming semester. The projected class size is then multiplied by the student activities fee, which currently sits at $135, to arrive at the student activities budget.
Elizabeth Crennan, FCRH ’19, the VP of finance and budget committee chair during last semester’s budget process, has sat on the committee for five budget days. In her experience, she said, she always purposely underestimates the number of students. This leaves the committee with more funds during the appeals process, according to Crennan.
Throughout this process, the only administrator involved is Assistant Director for Leadership Monique Dumaine, who facilitates USG. The Office of Student Involvement (OSI) checks the projected budget, but allocations are under the jurisdiction of students, according to Crennan.
Crennan said this student autonomy is crucial to the system. “Other than Monique (Dumaine) there aren’t a lot of other administrators involved in the process. It’s important that we are allocating our funding,” she said.
For the Spring 2018 semester, the committee projected a class of 5,800 students across Fordham College Rose Hill and Gabelli School of Business at Rose Hill. This led to a starting number of $783,000.
Traditionally, OSI takes 30 percent of this budget, in addition to a later $8,000, according to Crennan. These stipulations led to a budget of $519,880 for this semester.
This is the first time the new budgetary guidelines voted into effect during 2017 have been applied on a budget day. The new guidelines changed the language surrounding clubs, moving “referendum” clubs to block club status and “general clubs” to standard club status.
Block club status allows clubs that have sat in on three consecutive budget meetings and submitted a detailed letter on their purpose for the status to receive a relatively fixed amount from semester to semester. Standard-funded clubs submit budgets based on specific planned costs from semester to semester.
The funds received an almost even split between block-funded clubs, which took 53 percent of the budget, and standard-funded clubs, which took 47 percent, according to the Spring 2018 SLC Budget Presentation.
Programming clubs receive the majority of the budget, taking 39.42 percent of the funds. Campus Activities Board received the largest budget with $190,000, according to the budget presentation.
For budget requests that were not met, the reasons for denied appeals often lie in paperwork submission, according to Crennan. The most common reasons for fund appeal denials include lack of an operations packet or backup documentation.
The budget presentation breaks down the common reasons for denial by amount. $44,404.57 was denied for this semester on the basis of event dates being outside of programming dates for the semester, making it the greatest reason for denial.
Crennan said she understands the budget packets that clubs must complete are complex.
Marykate Decker, FCRH ’18, Director of Fordham University EMS (FUEMS), a block funded club, noted the difficulty of budget time and the advantage of familiarity with the type of paperwork that surrounds budget proposals.
“The budget deadline is a stressful time for all leaders, but overall I do believe the process is fair and comprehensive,” said Decker. Decker said that the Associate Director of FUEMS is accustomed to creating detail-oriented proposals, making the process easier.
