On Dec. 5, the Student Government Association announced dramatic changes to how various student organizations will be funded next year. These changes come after leftover pandemic era funds have finally run out, bringing the SGA budget back to pre-COVID numbers. Although the budget carryover in the past couple of years has been in the hundreds of thousands, SGA predicts zero carryover in the future.
SGA monitors 88.9% of the Student Activity Fund, a fee that every student pays as part of their tuition. SGA then allocates that money to a wide variety of groups that benefit students, including university-sponsored organizations like the Student Programming Board, Greek Council, Recreational Sports and Campus Publications, and registered- student organizations, such as identity-based and pre-professional organizations. With the fiscal reduction, many student organizations will have to plan for a reduced budget next year.
SGA Vice President Allison Waters, senior business and economics double-major, explained the majority of carryover spending occurred during the 2023-2024 academic year. Last year saw a 248% increase in spending from the prior year in an effort to prevent massive amounts of carryover in the future.
“Last year, there was such a focus on ‘spend, spend, spend’ because SGA had a lot of external influences from other university areas that were saying ‘well, you have too much money, spend it now or someone else is going to spend it for you,’” Waters said. “And SGA wanted this money to be set aside for students because it is for students, so that’s why we have been spending a lot more and why expectations have been raised so high.”
In 2023-2024, the excess money was spent on different student initiatives. These initiatives include Project HOME, which distributed about $200,000 across RSOs, and the Wellness Initiative, which funded $100,000 for additional health programs and salary for a new staff member.
The Wellness Initiative was a combined effort between the President’s office, SGA and Integrated Counseling Health and Wellness Services to improve mental wellness on campus. Marlaina Widmann, assistant director of Wellness Services, discussed how the funding allowed for different events and activities on campus.
“The majority of the money was spent on staffing. I was a one-person office for Wellness Services and we were able to add another staffing member, so we added a new position: the Wellness Programming Coordinator,” Widmann said. “We were also able to increase our student staffing as well. And then, a smaller percentage of it went towards adding more events and workshops.”
Widmann started at Trinity in August 2022 and remarked on how the Wellness Department was able to grow with the new staff editions. She also stated that Wellness Services has institutionalized a lot of the costs, so funding will not be coming from SGA in future years.
Although the past few years have included excess carryover in funds from COVID, SGA will have to be more selective in funding in the future. In past years, 80% of their budget has gone toward USOs with the remaining 20% being left for RSOs. However, in future years, the organization plans to give USOs closer to the amount that RSOs are allocated.
SGA President Joy Areola, senior human resources management and finance double-major, plans to continue facilitating monthly meetings with USOs this spring semester to plan for their April budget proposals. Although redistribution would change the past patterns of funding to USOs, Areola clarified that collaborative changes can easily be made to save money.
Any club not university-sponsored fits under the category of an RSO, which currently receives whatever is leftover after USO distribution. SGA is working with RSOs to fund what they deem essential, while also encouraging the clubs to take advantage of fundraising opportunities and alumni resources.
In addition to working with clubs directly to reduce expenditures, Areola and Waters mentioned involving their sponsor Andrew Wells, Vice President of Finance Mark Detterick and Dean of Students Jessica Edonick in deciding further action. The conversations are still occurring with nothing officially finalized, but the two SGA members hinted at many changes that are in the works.
“We are trying to figure out what to do with the SAF moving forward. If you read our constitution, we are able to make recommendations about those things. And so, we are absolutely advocating for students on that end to let the administration know that students are doing all of these awesome things and we don’t want to stop those things,” Areola said. “We are trying to see where the university can help us out to make sure we aren’t feeling like we are under pressure for these next few years.”
For more information on the intricacies of the SGA budget, the SGA Fall 2024 Financial Report was emailed to the student population in mid-December and can additionally be found on SGA’s Trinity website.
*This is part of an ongoing series about SGA and the budget.