Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

GUSA Prepares 2013 Draft Budget

The Georgetown University Student Association Finance and Appropriations Committee released a draft budget Thursday allocating its $960,000 in student activities fee money for the coming school year.

The amount of available funds increased by $160,000 from last year, allowing the Fin/App Committee to meet about 64 percent of the requests it received.

“Our goal was to give the most support to clubs and minimize the impact of the budget cuts,” Fin/App Chair Colton Malkerson (COL ’13) said. “From here on, there will be no substantial increase in student activities fee, so we expect this draft to serve as a precedent, a template for future budgets.”

All of the funding advisory boards, with the exception of the Advisory Board for Club Sports, saw their funding increase for fiscal year 2013. However, the ABCS was allocated $228,087, the largest amount within GUSA’s budget at nearly 24 percent. Although the allocation falls nearly $50,000 short of the board’s request, Malkerson justified the cut based on the large amount of funding for club sports in fiscal year 2012.

“We overshot on them, and we need to cut back to a more reasonable figure this year,” he said.

The Center for Social Justice received $180,000, the second-highest allocation of all groups.

“The fact that the Student Life Report indicated that the CSJ programs are one of the notable strengths of Georgetown makes me think we should fund them as much as possible,” Fin/App Committee member Bridget Power (COL ’12) said.

The Student Activities Commission will receive $150,000, a 67 percent increase from last year’s allocation. According to Fin/App Committee members, the increase should help SAC to fund newly formed student groups. The commission will also no longer have to allocate money to the Georgetown University Lecture Fund and SAC Fair, which were both regarded as independent entities in the draft budget.

The Lecture Fund, which turned to GUSA for funding because of SAC’s stipulation on its budget, was allocated $60,000, a 37 percent increase in funding for programming over what it received from SAC.

The Performing Arts Advisory Council was allocated $45,000, although the committee denied funding for a new air conditioner in Poulton Hall Theater for the second consecutive year. Committee members believed such capital improvements are the responsibility of University Facilities and Student Housing.

The Freshman, Sophomore and Junior Class Committees, which did not receive any funding from either GUSA or SAC in fiscal year 2012, will now be funded by the student activities fee money as well.

GUSA itself was the only group that received more funding than it requested. Fin/App committee members said the additional funding should be allocated to the GUSA Fund, which will in turn fund groups whose requests were denied. These include the Walsh Exchange, the Georgetown Office of Leadership Development and Illuminate Lauinger, a recipient of the 2011 ReImagine Georgetown grant.

The draft budget will be open to public critique and appeal until March 15. The Fin/App Committee will finalize the budget and send it to the GUSA senate for ratification after spring break.

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