COLIN PERRY
Editor in Chief
After months of work from the Student Association and Fredonia’s constituted groups, the Student Association’s budget for the 2017 – 2018 academic year was balanced on GA (General Assembly) Day, this year held on Saturday, April 1. The $1.3 million budget includes a $3 increase in the Student Activity Fee, bringing it to $112.50.
GA Day is the annual meeting of SA, its Budget & Appropriations (B&A) Committee and all constituted student groups where each group must declare whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with their next year’s budget as determined by the B&A Committee.
All clubs on campus are funded in part by the Student Activity Fee, which every student must pay alongside tuition. But with dropping enrollment comes less money available for every club.
In recent years, GA Day has been rife with debate and controversy as dissatisfied groups battled over a dwindling pool of funds; in 2016, the process took seven hours. However, to the surprise of nearly everyone in the room, this year’s GA Day was completed in less than two.
Whether it was due to actual satisfaction, an inability to turn in paperwork on-time or a failure to attend GA Day, nearly every group was recognized as satisfied on Saturday morning. The only group that declared dissatisfied, S.T.E.P.S., urged the committee that it would need an additional $200 in order to put on its annual Spring Has Sprung events, which tend to include a paid speaker and more.
“Yes, $200 is small, but that is the tipping point,” S.T.E.P.S. Treasurer and junior BFA musical theatre major Justine Collins said.
Members of SA, the B&A Committee and representatives of constituted groups then debated how to resolve the issue, with proposals including raising the Student Activity Fee by a few cents or to have other groups donate funds. Many in the room expressed skepticism that $200 would be make-or-break for the club.
After adjourning briefly for executive session, the B&A Committee determined that it was able to allocate an additional $100 for S.T.E.P.S. through the $3 increase in the Student Activity Fee, at which point the group declared itself satisfied. With every group signing off, SA’s budget of $1.3 million for the 2017-2018 academic year was passed, ensuring that all clubs on Fredonia’s campus can continue to fulfill their purposes for the next year.
SA Comptroller Rachel Ando said that she believed that the budget process this year went as well as it did due to a mutual understanding between SA and the groups comprising it.
“I think that it was communicated well to all of the groups that this is going to be a tight fiscal year and that people are going to have to go without for the year and see how next year will play out,” Ando, a senior business finance major, said. “I think everyone understood that, considering that we did have only one dissatisfied group, which was fine.”