President & Treasurer Mailings

President & Treasurer Email 9/22/20

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Hi all, 

I hope you all had a smooth start to your classes! Below are this week’s updates.

Quick Updates:

  • Regardless of whether you are holding an in-person or virtual event, you must submit your event registration via WUGO before appealing for funding using SU Finance. We are unable to review appeals for events that have not yet been approved on WUGO by Campus Life. This excludes ‘ongoing programming’ requests – for example, you will not need to submit a WUGO event registration form for software/technology that is not for a specific event.
  • New group recognition and category change applications are due this Friday, September 25 at 11:45pm. Questions can be directed to Zoë Hancock.
  • The Treasurer’s Corner on the SU website is currently under maintenance; I will let you all know when the page is back up and running. In the meantime, please use this link to access the SU Financial Guidelines.
  • If you/a group member misses a Presidents & Treasurers email, all emails are posted to the Student Union website at this link (su.wustl.edu -> News -> President & Treasurer Mailings). The only way to ensure communication gets to the right people is if your group’s WUGO roster + leadership information is up to date.

Here is the information that can be found below:

  • Fall 2020 Budget Overview
  • Student Group Leaders Training Update
  • SU Financial Guidelines (COVID Guide) Update + New University Donation Policy
  • Student Union Office in Fall 2020
  • Gephardt – Voter Registration

Fall 2020 Budget Overview

As I mentioned last week, the Student Activities Fee has been reduced from $281 to $50 for Fall 2020; as a result, our budget is significantly lower than what we initially expected and only covers essential operational costs and a small amount of programming. Because of this massive budget reduction and COVID-related restrictions, we had to eliminate all student group budgets and the majority of our own budget, hence the significant changes in how groups can access money this semester. For your reference, our appeals account currently sits at $35,000 for all Category I-IV groups (in a normal semester we typically have access to nearly $1 million for all student groups), so please be cognizant of this as your group determines its financial needs for the semester.

Student Group Leaders Training Update

Campus Life will be releasing a comprehensive guide to student group trainings this week – these will include Student Union sessions and Campus Life sessions. Some SGLT kickoffs have started this week. Presidents should be getting an invite from their GPS advisor with next steps. In addition, SU’s Financial Leadership team will be holding the following training next week (with additional sessions throughout October should we reach maximum Zoom capacity):

  • Tuesday, September 29 at 6:00pm CST: Overview for Student Groups – SU Resources + Policies in Fall 2020
  • Tuesday, September 29 at 6:30pm CST: How to Appeal in Fall 2020

All sessions will be accessible via WUGO (wugo.wustl.edu -> Events). Please RSVP ahead of time so we know how many people will be attending!

Student Union Financial Guidelines Update

Due to a policy change from General Accounting and the Tax Department, we had to make one addition to the financial guidelines. The update is written below for reference, and the updated guide can be found at this link – this guide includes all important COVID-related information for student groups in Fall 2020.

Donations to Outside Organizations

Student Union will not reimburse individuals for donations through Check Requests.  Donations must be made directly from WashU in the name of WashU.

Donations paid to charitable organizations are tax deductible for the payer and the receipt will be in the payee’s name.  For this reason, we do not allow reimbursements to students for charitable donations.  If you will be making a charitable tax-deductible donation, please be sure to make it using a Washington University check or a Washington University VISA card.

Student Union Office

Due to safety concerns, the Student Union office will unfortunately be closed for the fall semester. Please see the following if there is something you need to access in the office:

  • If you absolutely need to check your group’s mailbox, please go through the front door on the first floor during current business hours (M-Th 11am-4pm). The Campus Life staff member present will collect the item for you. You will not be able to show up to the office without a specific and significant reason.
  • Packages may not be sent to the SU Office this semester; if your group must order a package, it should be sent directly to the undergraduate student’s mailbox. Packages delivered to the SU Office in Spring 2020 should be collected via the steps outlined in the first bullet point.
  • Please know that bills/invoices that are mailed to the SU Office will be collected and distributed to one of the Business Coordinators for processing.

Gephardt – Voter Registration

This week, SU is supporting the Gephardt Institute’s Civic Action Week. Please urge club members to register to vote and engage in our community this week. By resharing the content from Gephardt’s Instagram (@gephardtinstitute), your club will be put into a drawing for $150.

Thanks all – as always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

All the best,

Alexa

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