Dear Student Group Presidents and
Treasurers,
My name is Arjan Kalra and I have served as your Budget Committee
Chair for the Spring and Fall 2019 semesters. I once again wanted
to thank you all for working incredibly closely with me this past
year to better improve Student Union’s financial practices to be
more transparent and accommodating to the needs of your student
group. Today, I am reaching out to you with some important
information regarding your Spring 2020 budget.
Over the past few weeks, Budget Committee has enjoyed reading and
discussing each of the
181
budgets we received and learning about your group’s mission and
vision. Through the process, Budget Committee
allocated
$849,902.68
for Category 1 student group events for the upcoming Spring
semester. However, there is about
$700,000
available for Category 1 student groups’ budgets for the Spring
2020 semester through the annual General Budget process. This
leaves a discrepancy of
$149,902.68
between the amount available for Category 1 groups and the amount
Budget Committee decided to allocate for groups. For that
reason,
Category 1 student groups will only receive 80% of what Budget
Committee allocated them for the Spring 2020
semester.
This funding percentage will not apply to equipment items or team
dues.
While we recognize that this may pose a challenge to your groups,
we believe that this is the most consistent way to proceed with
Spring 2020 budgets. Budget Committee is able to ensure fairness
throughout the allocation process by evaluating each budget
independently and with a consistent rationale. The Committee does
not consider how much money has been allocated to prior groups in
order to avoid giving preference to groups whose budgets are viewed
earlier on in the process, but instead evaluates each budget
according to the policies and procedures outlined in the Student
Union Financial Guidelines.
With that, we understand that you all have your own priorities
within your budgets, so we encourage groups to reallocate funds
within event types, reallocate from supplemental events to
essential events, and/or draw from fundraising and gifts accounts
to secure the funds you need for the events you plan on having next
semester.
This percentage is historically low, and I want to ensure you all are well-informed on how the rest of the Financial Leadership team and I worked to increase the funding percentage to where it sits currently. As examples, we did not fund apparel for any group and reallocated unspent funds in SU’s operating budget to Category I and II groups for Spring 2020. Despite this, the amount Senate and Treasury allocated to student groups in this year’s General Budget session still fell short of the amount we hoped for. This past year, we received $1.12 million from the session, yet saw over $2 million in student group budget requests. For this reason, I urge you all to make your voice heard in the General Budget process moving forward. I encourage you all to voice your thoughts and opinions in how you think Student Union should allocate funds in future General Budget sessions by talking to a legislative representative, the SU Vice President of Finance, or by attending the joint session.
If you would like to talk to us about your student group or learn
more about some of our rationale behind funding/not funding certain
line items in your budget, I would encourage you to attend our open
Post-Allocation Office Hours, where you can talk to numerous Budget
Committee members and any member of the Financial Leadership team
about your budget.
Those Office Hours will be on Wednesday (11/13) from 5:30PM-7PM,
Friday (11/15) from 5PM-7PM, and Tuesday (11/19) from 1:30PM-3PM.
They will all occur in the Student Union Office on the 2nd Floor of
the Danforth University Center.
As always, if you have any questions related to the information
above, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any member of the
financial leadership team: Ariel Ashie, VP of Finance
(finance@su.wustl.edu)
Alexa Jochims, Activities Committee Chair (activities@su.wustl.edu)
Agneesh Dasgupta, Speaker of the Treasury (treasury@su.wustl.edu)
or me, Arjan Kalra, Budget Committee Chair (budget@su.wustl.edu).
We are committed to helping you through this process in whatever
ways we can to ensure your group’s success next semester and
beyond.
Cheers,
Arjan Kalra
Student Union Budget Committee Chair
