The Student Technology Fee Oversight Committee approved a $3.4 million Information Technology Services proposal Tuesday in its first meeting of the year.
Associate Vice Chancellor of the Office of Budget and Planning Bob Kuhn projects $3.8 million will be collected from fiscal year 2012-13 Student Tech Fee, leaving the committee with approximately $4.1 million to spend once unallocated funds are included.
The 2012-13 budget passed unanimously, with a few revisions. The most noticeable of those was a decrease in the marketing budget of ITS from $20,000 to $5,000.
The approved budget totaled approximately $3.4 million, but that number will be bolstered by an additional $1 million next year at the request of the chancellor, bringing the total to $4.4 million.
That money will satisfy the chancellor’s request to use Tech Fee funds to temporarily augment other institutional budgets that were cut in the 2010.
“The budgetary situation has not changed,” said Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administrative Services and Chief Financial Officer Eric Monday. “At this point, I believe we need to approve this additional million. The budgetary situation next year is going to be challenging.”
These approvals will leave the Student Tech fee “in the red.” Because of a current shortage of funds, the Student Technology Fee faces an estimated shortage for fiscal year 2012-13 of $347,231.
Kuhn said the shortage in funds will not be an issue.
“Many proposals that come to us are over-estimated in order to make sure they have enough money to complete their project,” Kuhn said. “We shouldn’t be concerned with the shortage. We will conduct a sweep at the end of this year to collect any excess funds that will make up for that.”
Kuhn said the “sweep” historically has resulted in approximately $350,000 in left over funds.
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Contact Joshua Bergeron at [email protected].
$3.4 million Tech Fee budget approved Tuesday
February 29, 2012