Student Government Association officials found thousands of dollars they didn’t know about in their budget.
The money rolled over from last year, but was left in a holding account. It was discovered when SGA officials reviewed finances and performed an internal audit.
Since we continued to draw money from that account, the exact value has been fluid until now, said Chance Johnson, political science senior and SGA president.
“Our secretary of finance is working on nailing down a specific number, but I’m pretty comfortable saying it’s over $30,000,” Johnson said. “Rolling over money is a practice that the university is trying to phase out as part of the prioritization process, so SGA assumed we weren’t getting any and carried on as if we hadn’t.”
Prioritization allowed officials to see where university money was being spent and determine if changes should be made to academic and support programs. Visit MediaOCU.com to read more about prioritization.
“We assumed that, with some of the expenditures we had been making, had we had any money rolled over, it would’ve run out,” Johnson said. “We continued to go on assuming the money was coming from the $165,000 allocation that we got from this year.”
SGA received a budget cut of $45,000 for the 2015-16 academic year. Visit MediaOCU.com to read more about the budget cut.
The money in the rollover account was significantly more than SGA officials would’ve expected to receive from the university.
“I don’t know what exactly the factors were that contributed to that much money rolling over from last year, but it’s exciting, and it’s a great opportunity to move forward and do some good things for students,” Johnson said.
SGA has not determined what it will do with the money.
“The high offices are going to be meeting soon to go over it and set some priorities and figure out what we intend to do with it,” Johnson said. “I want to talk to Senate, and I want to talk to student activities and see what ideas they have for it. We’ll try to make some decisions that we hope will make life as good for students as it can be.”
One student said the money should be spent on helping campus organizations.
“I would like to see the money go toward student organizations, and they should give priority to those who have less money,” said Alejandra Santillan, cell and molecular biology sophomore.
Another said some cut programs should be brought back.
“I would like it to be put toward allotments to better help the organizations on campus or toward getting The New York Times back,” said Brandon Elder, acting sophomore.
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