“If you had $3 million, what would you do with it?”
The question, which is the Undergraduate Student Government’s slogan this year, was answered last week when the USG Senate voted on the 2011-2012 budget fall revision.
Senators unanimously approved the adjustments to the now $3,005,644 budget without any debate on Thursday.
The clubs whose budgets underwent revisions after being cut more than 40 percent from last year were Ballroom Dance ($4,750), Blackworld Newspaper ($4,930); COALITION ($5,417), Minorities in Psychology ($760), Science Fiction Forum ($6,150) and Table Tennis ($1,005).
The clubs that were subject to revisions after not having applied for budgets for this year were Adventist Youth Ministries ($1,155), Boxing ($399), the Japanese Student Organization ($792), Linguistics ($528), Soccer Club ($2,310) and the Wrestling Club ($2,310).
The Enduring Freedom Alliance did not apply for a revision and experienced the biggest cut from last year. Its budget fell from $8,000 to $1,000, or 87.5 percent.
The Sailing Club’s budget received the largest increase, jumping from $0 to $13,472. The club transferred from the Southampton campus and, according to USG Treasurer Thomas Kirnbauer, it’s not cheap “to put a boat in the water.”
The adjustments still need to be reviewed and certified by Peter M. Baigent, the university’s vice president for student affairs, Kirnbauer said. After the budget becomes effective, it will be posted on the USG website.
USG’s $3 million budget comes from the mandatory student activity fee paid for by all full-time undergraduate students at Stony Brook.
USG Services and Agencies Also Affected
Clubs were not the only ones affected by last week’s budget approval. Among USG’s contracted services and agencies, an organization lost its entire budget while another got a $130,000 increase.
The Student Senate decided to stop funding the Stony Brook’s Response of Suffolk County. Last year, the crisis management and suicide prevention hotline received $24,000. This year, it received $12,250, but after fall revisions the budget committee decided not to fund the organization anymore because its services are already provided by the Stony Brook’s Center for Prevention and Outreach.
“CPO is more directly for Stony Brook students,” said Kirnbauer, the USG treasurer. “If we have a similar resource on campus that provides the same services specifically for Stony Brook students, I think we [are] better [appropriating] the student activity fee.”
In a scenario that was different from most campus organizations, the Student Activities Board got a very large budget increase, going from $404,000 last year to more than $534,000 this year.
Other large budget increases among USG’s services and agencies include the Residence Hall Association, which increased from $0 to $38,000, and Campus Recreation, which jumped from $172,000 to $185,000.
On the other hand, large cuts affected the Stony Brook Child Care, which fell from $37,000 last year to $21,250 this year; Stony Brook’s chapter of the New York Public Research Group, or NYPIRG, which decreased from $33,000 to $21,250; Stony Brook Volunteer Ambulance Corps, or SBVAC, which went from $165,000 down to $141,000; and SBU-TV, which was lowered from $35,000 to $10,000.
The line budget for SBU-TV, which is undergoing restructuring, is actually frozen and will only be “touched” when the media organization is reorganized.
