Each semester, full-time students pay about $597 to the University in fees.
According to the Office of Budget and Planning Web site, 38 percent of the University’s revenues comes from tuition and fees paid by students.
Student fees help finance the Union renovations, Student Media, Student Sports Recreation, Student Government and numerous other fees such as the Academic Excellence Fee and a nonrefundable $10 registration fee.
Allen Richey, student government president, said it is important for students to know where their money is being spent.
Richey also said a lot of SG’s funds go toward helping students and student organizations.
Election time is a time in which it is especially important for students to know where their money is going, he said. Students should ask their candidates how they plan on budgeting the funds received from student fees.
Robert Lay, student government’s director of financial affairs, said SG receives nearly $5 million annually from student fees.
This figure includes the funds in the SG budget, SG Programing Support and Initiatives fee, Student Technology Fee, Student Government Fee and SG Organizational Relief Fund, Lay said.
Richey said the Student Technology Fee comprises a large amount of the $5 million.
According to the Student Government Bylaws, immediately after being inaugurated, the SG president must submit a proposed budget for the coming fiscal year to the Student Senate.
The bylaws say until a budget is adopted, funds will not be distributed to SG for that fiscal year.
The budget is to be considered the same as any other legislation in the Senate.
He said according to the SG 2003-04 budget, SG is estimated to generate a little more than $122,000.
The executive branch received a little more than $53,000 of this money, while the legislative branch received a little more than $51,000, Lay said.
The Senate, speaker of the Senate and executive branch have contingency which allows SG to support campus events, student organizations, traveling purposes of the president and speaker, and other needed activities or items.
The vice president’s contingency also is used for campus events, he said. This year the funds from the contingency have gone toward the STRIPES program, a freshman orientation program, Disability Awareness Week, Black History Month and the Martin Luther King Day programs.
Michael Busada, the student Senate speaker, said he has used his contingency for travels, mailings to the governor and to make fliers to get student involvement with Senate legislation.
Both Busada and Lay said the Senate’s contingency is divided up among different University student organizations who request funds from the Senate.
Lay said a senator will write a bill requesting funds for the organization. Then the bill will go through the Senate’s Finance Committee.
He said it is debated and voted on by the full Senate after it goes through the committee.
Lay said the process can become heated.
“There have been some long nights debating on a hundred bucks,” he said. “It can get kind of interesting.”
Last week the Senate has voted to give funds to Circle K, a student service organization, and the Engineering Council in order to offset the cost of upcoming conventions for the two groups.
According to the bylaws, the Senate’s general contingency was a little more than $23,000.
Currently, the Senate’s contingency holds about $12,000.
Lay said while he is the director of financial affairs, neither he nor the executive branch oversees the funds set aside for the Senate’s or speaker’s contingency.
An election contingency of $1,000 is used to finance polling booths, golf carts, extension cords and other necessities for SG
elections.
Lay also said there are three ways for student organizations to request funds from SG.
Organizations can request funds from the Senate, the Organizational Relief Fund or the Programming Support and Initiatives Fee.
Student organizations interested in requesting funds from the ORF or the PSIF must fill out forms.
College councils have rolling funds, Lay said.
He said if a college council has a remaining balance at the end of a fiscal year, they can fill out forms to make them roll over. The council then must have the forms signed by the president, vice president or office manager.
Lay said as far as he is aware, SG has never incurred a deficit from over-spending.
If they had, the Office of Accounting Services would not remit a check to them and SG would have to pay out of its own pockets, he said.
“I would not want to be here when that happens,” he said. “Somebody is going to jail.”
Richey said the SG’s account manager turns in all transactions to The Office of Accounting Services.