Budget edits continue
Published April 1, 2008
The Missouri Students Association Budget Committee has submitted revisions of MSA Vice President Chelsea Johnson’s proposed budget to Senate for review.
The committee held their final meeting dedicated to revisions March 20.
The committee’s proposed budget has been distributed to all members of MSA Senate for review, and they will discuss the budget revisions during committee meetings Tuesday. A second budget reading will occur during a full MSA Senate meeting on April 9.
MSA Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays said he will also review the MSA budget the committee submits before it is put in front of Senate for amendment or approval.
Mays will verify how much funding will carry over from the 2008 fiscal year, examining incorrect placement in PeopleSoft accounts. Mays said he will compare revenue in each account with the associated FY08 revised budget each organization sent to Johnson and the committee.
He will then identify any revenue placed in incorrect accounts and speak with department heads about discrepancies, he said.
He will do the same with expenses, and use this information to calculate new projected carryover and propose an amendment to the budget with more precise FY08 line items and, if necessary, propose an amendment with new FY09 allocations.
MSA Budget Committee Vice Chairman Seth Botts said he felt the revision process went smoothly.
“Chelsea really knew was she was doing, seeing as she was budget committee chair for two years,” Botts said. “That made the work this year really easy. Also, people didn’t seem to have many complaints about their proposed budgets.”
At the meeting March 20, they composed legislation stating their proposals, which would revise the STRIPES, DSA, MUTV and Peer Rape Educators program sections of the budget originally suggested by Johnson.
The first motion asked STRIPES to tap into their gift fund, which accumulates tips and donations the organization receives each year. As of the 2008 fiscal year, the fund had accumulated $46,000 that the organization could use for any group expenses. Johnson said she met with STRIPES Director Domingo Pacheco to discuss using monies from the fund and said she felt that the committee should cut somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 from STRIPES’ budget, and that STRIPES should use money from its gift fund to make up the difference.
At the meeting, the committee decided to reallocate $11,100 from the STRIPES budget to DSA, MUTV/Channel 23 and the Peer Rape Educators program. Money reallocated to DSA would include $6,600 for the College of Music professional service budget, $1,500 to establish a series of small concerts showcasing local musicians and $5,100 to fund a concert at Fall Welcome. DSA Director Rachel Parrish said DSA wants to make sure Fall Welcome is an exciting start to the school year for students, and with additional funds DSA might be able to procure a musical group along the lines of OK Go.
Botts said he feels it is important DSA knows this additional funding will not be present in all years to come.
“We won’t be able to fund DSA at this level in the future because I feel we shouldn’t make large student fee increases,” Botts said. “DSA is an easy place to give extra funds because they can still operate next year when we have to cut funding back.”
Johnson said she felt the committee’s revision process went smoothly.
“I feel that in the future the budget committee should get the chance to meet earlier to discuss how budgets work and talk with organizations earlier so they have more time to figure everything out,” Johnson said. “Even so, I’d say it went pretty smoothly.”