The Student Government Association may face a budget cut next year.
This year’s budget for SGA was $213,263 as of July 1. This budget doesn’t include the rollover amount from last year, which was about $19,000.
SGA also had about $9,000 in their reserve fund, which is used for nontraditional student organization requests.
Officials have proposed to no longer add the rollover amount to SGA’s overall budget, but to transfer the rollover directly to the reserve fund.
“Our adviser said that the university thinks it’s not a good practice for us to have rollover,” said Beatrize Martinez, SGA president. “That may not be a luxury SGA has moving forward.”
SGA officials will not know the official decision until finding out next year’s budget this summer.
“We’ve dealt with this year’s budget with the upmost consideration considering we’ll most likely be facing a budget cut next year,” said Terrance Craft, vice president of SGA.
This year’s budget was already smaller than last year’s by more than $18,000, and that doesn’t include added rollover amount.
The rollover amount is used for whatever SGA officials deem fit, but the reserve fund only can be used for other organizations on campus.
SGA has allocated more money toward the Student Activities Council this year than ever before, Martinez said. This money has made events such as the food truck fair possible.
The food truck fair is one of the Stress Relief Week events where vouchers are given to students for a variety of food trucks on campus.
“Our strategy this year was to allocate more money toward the Student Activities Council so they could host more events,” Martinez said.
SGA’s budget also was used toward a digital sign to go outside the caf in Tom and Brenda McDaniel University Center that is supposed to get here this week to inform students of any events or announcements.
They also have money set aside for the university’s mobile app, but are unsure if they are still the ones paying for the app or if it is already covered, Martinez said.
“We’re definitely trying to spend wisely,” Martinez said. “But we’re also trying to keep in mind that we won’t have rollover.”
The reserve fund has been used twice this year.
Once was for the food truck fair during fall because it wasn’t originally allocated for and the second was for OCU’s speech and debate team.
The team received $3,000 to attend nationals.
“It was a good gesture of good faith for us to go ahead and give money to the speech and debate team,” Craft said. “They have proven themselves to be really great, and I think it’s really awesome that SGA was able to be a part of that and give them money to go do great things.”
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