Stony Brook University’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) discussed potentially combining the funding from the Travel Grant and the Weekend and Evening Event Enhancement (WEEE) Grant to create the “Weekend and Evening Travel Enhancement Grant.”
Due to the differences in spending between the Travel and WEEE Grants, at-large Senator Lauren Fanter proposed modifying the financial bylaws to allow WEEE Grant money to fund travel expenses. The amendment would then be changed to allow the “Budget Grant Committee to have the power to decide whether a grant will use the Budget Grant Pool or the WEEE Grant fund.”
Fanter explained that the Travel Grant is used at a faster rate than the WEEE Grant. By combining them, more money will be allocated towards upcoming weekend travel requests.
“I think that more clubs get Travel Grants than they get event grants. They usually use their line budget for events. So, the [Travel] Grant pool is running low and a lot of clubs are coming in wanting money to travel,” Fanter said.
Fanter then asked Treasurer Bonnie Wong how much is left in each grant. The remaining funds in the Travel Grant pool are currently $15,000, compared to the $46,000 left in the WEEE Grant.
Wong emphasized that although there is $15,000 left in the Travel Grant, $21,000 worth of travel plans are scheduled to be proposed by the following Monday and that by the next week, the Travel Grant will be empty.
At-large Senator Taher Motiwala argued that the purpose of the WEEE Grant was to promote more on-campus weekend events. Allowing the amendment to pass would, to some extent, defeat the purpose of the grant.
“I feel like we need to keep this money on campus,” Motiwala said.
At-large Senator Eesha Uddin said that when voting on grants, they could focus more on WEEE Grant requests.
“We could prioritize WEEE grant stuff and more on campus things,” Uddin said. “Ultimately, you can argue about first come, first serve when it comes to these things.”
“Given that we are a commuter campus and our events specifically on the weekends after 6 p.m. are sometimes already incredibly sparse, I don’t think [this proposal is] necessarily fair to students who are already on campus,” at-large Senator Minal Iftikhar responded.
Afterward, the Senate voted, which led to a tie and further discussion.
Iftikar said many students aren’t familiar with the WEEE Grant. She suggested that if an event is funded by the WEEE Grant, it should be posted on USG’s social media account and the caption should encourage clubs to apply for the grant if they are interested.
“I think there’s a lack of awareness about the grant’s availability to students,” Iftikar said. “There needs to be a lot more campaigning.”
Ultimately, the Senate unanimously voted against the proposition.
Wong then presented a slideshow to propose implementing a 15%-20% budget penalty on the African Students Union’s (ASU) budget.
Wong explained that ASU requested to purchase e-board apparel, but their request was rejected since it was over their $1,000 budget cap. In response, Luqman Subair, the president of ASU, said the request was mistakenly categorized as apparel when ASU meant to request them as supplies for their upcoming fashion show.
Wong explained that their request cannot be approved unless they can be put in storage and used in the future, to which Subair responded that both were possible. After reviewing their invoice request, Wong noted their apparel was customized with the names and positions of e-board members, which questioned ASU’s ability to reuse the apparel.
“Everyone in the club [is] supposed to sign the signatory form, be responsible for their budget, follow the financial bylines and not lie to the Treasury Office,” said Wong. “They’re not supposed to misuse their funds like this.”
She also argued the penalty would be reasonable due to ASU’s recent budget spending. Last year, ASU spent 72% of their budget. This year, however, they’ve used less than a third of their budget.
Nistha Boghra, the president of USG, expressed that a penalty that high could potentially set a bad precedent. Many of the at-large Senators including Aman Mistry, Uddin and Mahmud agreed and felt the penalty might be too harsh.
“I feel like [ASU] not using their budget is a separate issue than them using their budget wrong[ly],” Mistry said. “For now, their penalty should be something appropriate for what they did.”
Subair and other members of ASU were in attendance through a zoom call.
“We weren’t trying to do malpractice,” he said. “We’ve been one of the top Black organizations on campus. So I feel one slip up shouldn’t be that heavy of a penal[ty] from a mistake we tried to clear up.”
Executive Vice President Ray Chen motioned to table the conversation and not make any decisions until further discussions could be held. Boghra extended an invitation to ASU to attend an Executive Council meeting. Chen then suggested that ASU attend the following USG general body meeting for the Council and Senate to get a better idea of what transpired.
