News > October 23, 2003

By Monica Belford

Old Gold and Black Reporter

The Student Budget Advisory Committee allocated nearly $500,000 to student organizations this week—but budget concerns and an increase in the number of groups requesting funding forced the committee to give the majority of the organizations less than their requested amount, according to junior Robert Wolfe, Student Government treasurer.

The SBAC announced the 2004-2005 budget recommendations for 77 campus organizations and 27 club sports Oct. 20. Sixteen new organizations, including the Student Web portal, asked for funding this year.

The SBAC will dis-tribute a total of $514,209.80—the same amount as last year. So far only $482,075.78 has been allocated; the remainder is reserved for appeal hearings, held Oct. 22 and 23. Final appeal decisions will be announced Oct. 28.

This year’s distribution process proved more difficult than last year, according to a document posted by the SBAC with the list of budget recommendations: “SBAC would like to reiterate that it was given the same amount of funds as last year to distribute with more organizations requesting funding. As a result, SBAC was unable to grant many organizations the same amount of funding they received last year.”

While three organizations, Ducks Unlimited, Homerun and the Wake International Student Association, received all the funding they requested, the majority of the budgets were significantly reduced. A few groups did not request any funding, including the Express Step Team, Model United Nations, Tap Club and Three to Four Ounces.

One new organization, the Amateur Radio Club, which asked for $958.74 in a preliminary budget, was denied any financial support.

According to Wolfe, the applications for funds involve an annual meeting and assessment by the SBAC.

“Each organization presents a budget for the upcoming fiscal year at a 15 minute hearing, during which members of SBAC may ask questions of each organization,” Wolfe said of the process.

“SBAC uses information from the budget hearing along with the previous year’s spending, the current year’s allocation and evaluations provided by the Appropriations and Charter Committee, to reach their decision,” he said.

Wolfe also emphasized the limitations on the total amount available for funding. “SBAC does not ask for a certain amount, and thus has no say. In years past the amount has been increased from year to year by the administration,” he said. 

“However this year, due to the current fiscal situation, the money allocated to SBAC remained the same as last year, as did many budgets campus wide.”

The SBAC, made up of eight students including the SG treasurer, an elected student from each class and three appointed members, reworked the same budget of $482,075.78 from 2003-2004 for the coming fiscal year.

Among the 77 campus organizations, the Howler ranks as the organization with the highest allocation with $100,626. The Old Gold and Black ranks second with $99,000, and Student Government comes in third with $55,060.50.

Unlike the yearbook, newspaper and SG, which all saw funding increased for the coming year, many organizations face significant budget cuts. After requesting a large budget increase from $27,896 to $40,359, WAKE TV had its funds reduced by 17.92 percent to $22,896.

Senior Bill Dillon, financial officer for WAKE TV, acknowledged some key losses for the organization due to this decreased funding.

“We were going to try and get a new computer for editing and auxiliary equipment because a lot of our computers are old and run down. We wanted some new furniture to make it (the filming) more professional and we were also hoping to get funds to help get marketing out to the students to have them more involved,” Dillon said.

WAKE TV will have to make smart decisions about how to spend its money next year, Dillon said. “We are just going to have to be more conservative, making more quality stuff.”

The Equestrian Club also requested a notable account increase from its 2003-2004 budget of $4,735 to a new budget of $50,912.00 for the coming year. However, the club was only granted a 1.41 percent increase, making its total $4,802.

The Equestrian Club president and co-captain of the Dressage Team, junior Mary Catherine Rich, said that additional funds would have paid for membership, training, showing and hosting fees, helping the 50 regular riders.

“It (the budget) affects us by members having to pay out of their own pockets. Mostly the money would have gone to the show fees, but we gave them (SBAC) about $50,000 to see what we were dealing with,” Rich said.

“What would be great is if we could get enough in our budget to fund the shows that we have here at home. That is a burden that doesn’t need to be on the members themselves,” Rich added.

The SBAC recommendations gave 24 organizations a budget increase and 26 a decrease. Among club sports, 12 clubs received a decrease and 12 an increase.