Stony Brook’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) convened on Thursday, April 10, to discuss potential Financial Bylaws changes for the 2025-26 academic year and provide current financial updates.
At-large Senator Lauren Fanter proposed a legislation to codify that decisions made by the Probationary Budget Committee (PBC) may be appealed.
According to the Financial Bylaws, the PBC shall review all funding requests for recognized student organizations (RSOs) and determine if they meet the eligibility requirements for USG funding. However, the bylaws do not clearly state if appeals can be made by the clubs.
Fanter’s amendment proposed that the final decision made by the PBC could be appealed by a two-thirds majority vote from the Senate.
Vice President of Clubs and Organizations and overseer of the PBC Aryan Sharma showed his support for the legislation and assured the Senate that, although this process was not explicitly written in the bylaws, it was something the PBC has practiced.
“Whenever a club emailed me [asking for explanations on certain decisions], I always explain the reason and [tell them] you’re welcome to appeal it to the Senate,” Sharma said.
In response, the Senate voted unanimously to pass the amendment.
Afterwards, at-large Senator Eesha Uddin proposed legislation to limit RSO’s line budget travel to two exceptions.
Currently, the Financial Bylaws read that organizations funded by USG cannot spend more that $350 per person on a singular off-campus activity; however, exceptions could be made at the Treasurer’s discretion.
Uddin proposed to replace this rule with, “RSOs can request no more than two exceptions to their line budgets per academic year. Granting exceptions is at the discretion of the USG Treasurer.”
“I feel like the discretion should remain with the Treasurer because it really depends on the context,” at-large Senator and incoming Vice President of Clubs and Organizations Taher Motiwala responded.
Members of the Senate assured Motiwala that this was already the case. However, Motiwala argued that capping the number of exceptions could eliminate flexibility for unforeseen situations that might require more than two.
“I don’t think this is [something] we need to legislate on,” Motiwala continued. “I think this should remain at the discretion of the treasurer to give as many exceptions as the Treasurer [sees fit].”
At-large Senator Sophia Dimont countered Motiwala’s response.
“No club should need that many exceptions — if it’s more than two, it’s excessive,” Dimont said.
At-large Senator Uzair Mahmud explained that while a situation in which a RSO needed three exceptions has not yet occurred, it does not mean it couldn’t happen in the future.
“I don’t see a reason [to pass the legislation] because there may be a case where a third exception may be needed, and then this becomes burdensome,” Mahmud said.
Motiwala then explained why he believed that the Senate should avoid proposing unnecessary legislation.
“I don’t think we should be [creating legislation] just for the sake of it,” Motiwala said. “If this is something that isn’t a problem, I don’t think we should just pass laws.”
“Overall clubs shouldn’t consistently be using more money than they should be allowed to [based on the bylaws] on events,” Fanter pointed out. “It would be unfair to other clubs if [the Treasurer] kept making exceptions. We don’t want it to seem like clubs can keep asking for [exceptions].”
USG Treasurer Bonnie Wong said that the purpose of the legislation is to ensure clubs do not feel entitled to exceptions and that two is more than enough. Wong emphasized that clubs going over their budgets take money from the Student Activity Fee (SAF), essentially using students’ money to pay for other students’ expenses.
Once the Senate finished debating, the legislation passed with a majority of 19 votes while five Senators opposed and one Senator abstained.
Afterward, Wong gave a presentation on updates within the Treasury Office.
She mentioned that several clubs have already used their entire budget; for the clubs who haven’t, there is an option to forfeit their remaining budget.
Wong’s presentation stated that after Sunday, April 27, the Treasury Office will begin reviewing each club’s spending percentages. Clubs that have not met the requirement of spending 50% of their total line budget will not be eligible to receive a line budget the following academic year.
Following this slide, she then highlighted a discrepancy between the Treasury Office’s projected SAF budget and the actual figures.
It was projected that the SAF would total around $3.7 million , but currently, it is closer to $3.6 million. Wong further explained that as of Thursday, April 10, roughly $2.3 million had been spent. She clarified that of the $2.3 million spent, there are still 503 transactions in progress which will add to that total.
“What are the foreseen impacts of getting less money from the SAF, and how are we going to handle it?” Dimon asked.
“There’s nothing we can do at this moment in time,” Wong replied. “We’re hoping we’re going to get more money, we still have a month to two months left.”
