By Dee Richardson//
The Hood College Student Government Association has a new budget allocation policy that affects all student organizations on campus.
The new policy, which was approved last spring, requires student organizations to propose a budget to SGA for the academic year 2022-23 and actively participate in student government.
The budget allocation process was changed to more evenly disperse funds to student organizations and to create stronger student governance, SGA president Hannah Armstrong said.
The change was needed because SGA ran out of funding for clubs last year, she said.
Armstrong commented that one of the major reasons the new policy was adopted was because “decent” amounts of money were being requested with no regard to what was happening in the student government meetings.
Big events hosted by some of the student organizations were depleting the funds too fast, which is why HCSGA is requiring a budget proposal to be made for the academic year, she said.
“We’re trying to plan out for the whole year, so in case it does go out, we can start planning for it,” Armstrong said.
But some student organization leaders said they feel as though they were barely given time to plan out their yearly events, as a budget had to be proposed by Sept. 30.
President of Queer Student Union (QSU) Anna LePlatt said that planning big events like Safe Sex Carnival, which QSU hosts, has become worrisome and frustrating.
“We need to start from scratch for the carnival. The event is on Nov. 11 and we still haven’t ordered anything because our budget for this year hasn’t been approved,” LePlatt said. QSU now resorts to buying things off Amazon in order to meet time constraints.
LePlatt commented that it is unfair to clubs who want to collaborate with other clubs but can’t because of budget approvals.
President of SPARC Ashley Coppage said she believes there is a lot of planning and variables that clubs are now forced to consider too soon and too quickly.
“I think it’s a lot for students to plan out an entire budget for the year,” Coppage said.
Coppage is a senior graduating in December. Planning out a budget for a year that she won’t be present for has been difficult, as she has to make sure that her executive board is following her trail closely for any changes being made.
Coppage said she thinks that there is a general lack of communication between the student organizations and SGA, which she believes is adding to the frustrations of the new budget process
Before an organization can propose a budget, it must be officially recognized by student government. For a student organization to receive a budget, it must also meet new requirements.
These requirements include attending SGA’s bi-weekly meetings; participating in the voting process; participating in one community service event for at least one hour with 25% of club members present; submitting a budget proposal with all projected expenses for the year; and signing a dissolution clause which requires all unspent funding to be returned to SGA.
Student organizations can elect to schedule a meeting with SGA to discuss the annual budget proposal, Armstrong said.
Be the first to comment