In last week’s edition, Katie Amdur, our wonderful news section editor, reported on the upcoming budget cuts for university-sponsored organizations and registered-student organizations. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but essentially, our Student Government Association has run out of money to distribute, which means that all USOs have to cut their budgets by upwards of 40% for RSOs to have any money next year, and I wish our university had prevented this.

I, like so many other USO and RSO members, am terrified for the future of my organization. Trinitonian has a slight safeguard, but we’ll still have to slash our budget, cutting wages, jobs and likely the number of editions we print in the future. I can’t help but be angry.

Specifically, I’m angry that “external influences” have made SGA spend the rest of their carryforward — the leftover money they’ve had from previous years. According to SGA Vice President Allison Waters, SGA was told that they had to spend all of their carryforward, otherwise they would lose it.

I understand the sentiment that each year’s students are paying for the student activity fund, and the activities should benefit them, but personally, I wouldn’t mind sacrificing some of my activities to keep our clubs afloat, especially when that carryover money is going to toward things like the salary of a new Wellness Programming Coordinator.

The Mental Wellness Initiative should have been funded by our university. A staff member’s $70,000 salary is not student activity related. I’m not downplaying the impact of the Mental Wellness Initiative; students’ mental health is a priority. A staff member’s salary, though, should be funded by something else — something like our billion-dollar endowment.

That billion-dollar endowment is currently going toward tearing up the brand-new Dicke Hall parking lot and replacing it with a welcome center that won’t open until after I graduate. The school is spending so much money “beautifying” our campus, but our student organizations — the things that connect our community and affect our lives in a much more meaningful way — are dying.

I’m not blaming SGA. There are so many levels of mismanagement at play here that I cannot scapegoat one group. President Joy Areola and Vice President Waters have put their all into dealing with this disaster. They set up a meeting with all USOs to notify us last semester, months before we have to present our budget proposals. They’ve planned multiple more meetings in the coming months to help prepare us for this change.

There are factors, though, that I think were avoidable from the start. The biggest is the loss of carryover money from previous years, especially from COVID years. We need a rainy day fund for disasters, and using the excess money to fill gaps that should’ve been filled by other means is not the way to go. For Trinitonian, that means not asking SGA for $10,000 less than we needed to in the years after COVID because of our carryover. For SGA, that means not paying for a new staff’s salary that the school should have paid for.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no expert on money, but I know what affects the communities I love. I know I don’t mind making space for future students to have the necessary funds they need to keep their organizations going.

I’m asking for the “external influences” Vice President Waters referenced in Katie’s article to allow SGA to carry over money. I’m asking everyone to think of the importance of athletic teams, of volunteer opportunities, of identity-based clubs, of journalism. In the meantime, I’m asking you to do whatever you can to support your community and keep your organizations alive.