MSA reduces budget, increases spending

Unexpected carryover allows MSA to spend more without raising fees.

By Amanda Wysocki

Published Feb. 5, 2009

For the first time, the Missouri Students Association plans to reorganize their finances to increase spending on their departments and auxiliaries but still reduce the budget.

After looking at the budgets of various MSA departments and auxiliaries, $39,500 will be reallocated to the MSA contingency fund.

That will be combined with about $40,000 in carryover from last year's budget.

Last year, when the MSA Senate began looking at the projected carryover from the previous year's budget, they originally estimated about $40,000, but later found out it would be closer to $100,000, MSA Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays said.

The Senate realized the carryover would be larger than expected, too late to do very much with it, so they put it into an equipment fund, Mays said.

"I'm trying to start with the most accurate reflection of our current plans of the budget of what we will have at the start," Mays said. "We want to make sure that we're using student fees as efficiently as possible. It's not helpful to anyone to budget considerably more than they spend year after year. This is going to help us spend more on programming and services while asking students to pay less."

This year will also be the first year the MSA Budget committee will have a multi-year budget presented, Mays said.

In the past, it has just been the fiscal year's budget and projections for the next fiscal year. The inability to look at several years' budgets at once caused overspending in some areas, Mays said.

From this point forward, MSA Vice President Colleen Hoffmann will have the key role in shaping the budget.

"Department heads are in the process of submitting their budget requests to me, and I will start sitting down and meeting with them about what their plans are for that money," Hoffmann said. "I will just clarify what their plans are for that department or auxiliary."

Hoffmann will then receive a spreadsheet with all fixed costs from the MSA fiscal adviser.

At this point, the process is going according to plan, Hoffmann said.

"I'm meeting my personal expectations and goals," Hoffmann said. "I want to set standards and goals for how to proceed if the economy stays this way."

Hoffmann hopes to stay fiscally responsible with the budget for the next year.

"We're trying to keep consistent with a lot of the different budget cuts and freezes that Mizzou is going through," Hoffmann said. "I didn't want to be inconsistent with the cautiousness that a lot of different departments are going through. I want to do this in a frugal and responsible way."

Along with reducing the MSA budget, there will hopefully be changes in the way the MSA Budget Committee is run, said MSA Budget Committee Chairman Matt Sheppard.

"We want to become more of a management committee," Sheppard said. "We normally just look over the budget, but we really want to give the students the most bang for their buck."

Since the budget will have more carryover than in past years, Sheppard said MSA plans to challenge the auxiliaries to institute some plans they had not had funding for in the past.

"MUTV wants to get a new studio, which is something we're looking into," Sheppard said. "Department of Student Activities wants to bring in some bigger events, which is another thing we are looking into."

After Hoffmann meets with the department and auxiliary heads, she will bring her recommendations to the budget committee and the final budget will be set by April.