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Student Senate passes resolution to give Student Activity Portfolio $15,000 for final week of fiscal year

SGA Senate meeting on March 25, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.
SGA Senate meeting on March 25, 2019, in Auburn, Ala.

 Auburn’s Student Senate voted to give $15,000 to the Student Activity Portfolio to cover potential grants as the end of the fiscal year looms. 

The Student Senate adopted the bill at its regularly scheduled Monday meeting. The bill will support the Division of Student Affairs, as it ran out of money to support organizations for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends at the start of October.

The Organizations Board holds hearings when any of Auburn’s over 500 student-run organizations and clubs request funding for higher-cost expenses. Organizations can make presentations and request funding for activities such as travel expenses to off-campus conferences or event planning. 

“You would request to the [Organizations Board] to get a little bit of money so you could send a few of your members,” said Rett Waggoner, sophomore in pre-business and senator in SGA’s Budget and Finance Committee. “If you come after the fact, [the board] might reimburse you, and if you come before the fact, they might give you money to spend as long as you have orderly receipts.”

The board makes decisions on how requests will serve the student body and there are a specific set of guidelines they have to follow to determine how they grant funding. 

The fund had been depleted with the end of the fiscal year just around the corner, so no requests could be fulfilled. The SAP would not have been able to fulfill any requests made in the next week. 

Waggoner presented the bill before the Student Senate, which requested $15,000 as a program expansion fund to cover the remaining time left in the fiscal year. An Organizations Board hearing is set for next week to determine how the money will be distributed within the office’s Student Activity Portfolio.

“Essentially, they could have anyone ask them for money, any amount, and they could approve it at night depending on how their presentation goes,” Waggoner said.

As per SGA procedure, the adopted bill will need to be signed off by SGA President Mary Margaret Turton and Vice President Carlos Smith before the funding is allotted to Student Involvement. 

SGA received word of the SAP’s lack of funding approximately two weeks ago and immediately set to work on drafting the bill to provide the division with ample time to earn the funding.

“It was a quick bill to write,” Waggoner said. “There wasn’t much debate about it because it’s giving money to what makes Auburn, Auburn.”

Student Involvement can’t be certain about which organizations will have their requests granted. Until the Organizations Board hearing is held, it won’t be known how much of this program expansion fund will be spent in the next week.

However, whatever portion of this funding remains at the end of the month will be sent to a carry-over hearing on Oct. 24.

“It’ll be up to budget and finance, and there’ll be more public hearings for that,” Waggoner said.

The committee could decide to have leftover funds, if any, not awarded to student organizations carry over to next fiscal year’s fund, or it could decide to return the remaining funds to SGA.

The SAP’s fund had originally been set at $100,000 at the beginning of the fiscal year. However, the fund had been increased by $25,000 at the Oct. 8, 2018, Senate meeting.

Waggoner said the portfolio can be increased by 20% without formal action if it appears the funding will not cover potential costs. The overall fund has increased over the past few years as the amount of requests from organizations has increased, Waggoner added. 

The Organizations Board has seen an increase in the amount of requests from organizations, but the amount per individual request has been about the same, Waggoner said.

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Waggoner attributed the increase of funding requests to the student body becoming more aware of the ability to request funding. 

He added that SGA has done a good job of spreading awareness of this opportunity for student organizations. Nearly two out of every three students are involved with an organization in some capacity, which Waggoner said is much higher than that of peer institutions.


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