JOSH RANNEY
News Editor
This past week wrapped up business for the Student Association’s Budget and Appropriations week.
The process, that has a notoriously meticulous reputation, ended with relatively few major changes to the Student Association budget.
Student Association Comptroller Jason Cheung said there were really only two areas of note throughout the week.
First being, FREDAssist.
“FREDAssist is going to change,” said Cheung.
Instead of operating a clinic, FREDAssist will be running more of a personal counselling and education experience for Fredonia students.
“Even though there are similarities to what STEPS does, they are doing it in a different way. STEPS operates more of a presentation style while they are operating more of a one-to-one kind of counselling and services,” Cheung said.
The second change is coming to the Intramural Sports budget.
Cheung said, “They’re changing their budget because they’re re-working how intramurals work. They realized there have been less participants and less need for certain sports so they’ve removed them.”
In all, Cheung said this has been a budget season of welcomed ease compared to past ones.
“I would say this year has been a little bit easier than previous years. Most groups know that we’re in a tough time, just like the rest of the campus, so they didn’t really ask for much of an increase, but kept it mostly the same,” said Cheung.
Cheung said the policy of the Budget and Appropriations committee is to go line-by-line through each constituted group’s budget.
“We review every single line, regardless,” said Cheung, “We look at their past history and purposes and see if they’re using [that line] for the same purpose again and determining if it’s needed.”
When it comes down to it, Cheung said each group gets the same intricate treatment for the purpose of refining each club’s budget, as well as the overall SA budget of “Around $1.3 million,” Cheung said.
“We’re just trying to be fair to every single group.”
As of right now, Cheung said they are proposing no change to the Student Activity Fee for next year.
They are also suggesting an increase in the hours of operation for the Campus Community Bus by one hour, though the specific change has yet to be determined.
Cheung urged that nevertheless, “That is just a proposal and still subject to change.”
At the end of each meeting that the committee has with each constituted group, they ask if the group is “satisfied” or “dissatisfied” with their proposed budget issued by the committee.
This year, Cheung said each group left their meetings claiming satisfaction.
In the days since, Cheung said, “So far there is only one group who has said they are dissatisfied and that is General and Administrative.”
The rest of the groups still have time to go back and review everything with their eboard and submit their declaration of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
“So there can still be changes to their final decision of satisfied or dissatisfied. But as of right now, we have a verbal confirmation from everyone that they are satisfied,” Cheung said.
The three-term Comptroller also said that because there weren’t many changes to the overall budget between the individual meetings and balancing the final budget, he is confident there won’t be many more dissatisfied groups.
Based on this, Cheung is hoping for a pretty easy GA Day.
“Hopefully within 30 minutes,” he said.
GA Day is when the final budget is brought before the General Assembly of the Student Association for approval.
There, final changes can be made to the budget and if any groups are dissatisfied, the Assembly and committee have historically worked to satisfy everyone.
Although, “It is not a requirement for the Student Association to ensure that every group is satisfied with their budget,” Cheung said.
The past few GA Days have been of varying length.
Last year, the meeting lasted less than 30 minutes, while just three years ago, it lasted over eight hours.
GA Day is scheduled for Saturday, Mar. 2 at 11 a.m. in McEwen 209.