USG presents upcoming budget at Senate meeting

Undergraduate Student Government Treasurer Christian Edwards presented the full 2016-2017 budget, which allocates more than $2 million toward USG, to the USG Senate at its meeting on Tuesday at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center. The budget will be approved next week.

USG funding comes from the $64 paid by each student both semesters every year. Though undergraduates contribute to the majority of the USG budget, $60,348 will also come from the previous year’s contingency fund.

The largest allocation will go toward Concerts Committee, with $470,293 allocated for the next academic year, a 57.8 percent increase since the 2014-2015 academic year. The annual Conquest festival has an additional $19,000 allocation separate from the Concerts Committee funding. The second largest amount will be designated to the Discretionary Fund, a board which funds programming for recognized student organizations.

Sen. Sabrina Enriquez asked about the allocation for Recreational Club Council. Enriquez was concerned as to why this was a USG funding issue, instead of one provided by Student Services.

“We no longer fund it. Graduate Student Government chose not to fund it last year, and that turned out just fine,” Enriquez said. “My question is, ‘Why are we funding RCC, when that’s probably something that should be funded by the University?’”

USG President Edwin Saucedo clarified the purpose of the RCC fee being included in the USG budget. Saucedo explained that several of the fund allocations which did not appear to belong under the USG budget were placed there because of their student-related programming nature.

“This is the Student Programming Fee, which comes from the University,” Saucedo said. “They give it to us, so if you see these items, specifically such as Conquest, Leadership Team, Volunteer Services and RCC, those are because they are directly dealing with students programming.”

Some of the newly-appointed Senators had questions concerning the nature of restricted funds and their separation from the rest of the allocations in the budget. Sen. Tyler Matheson asked about the nature of the reserve funds, which was not clearly explained.

Senator and Speaker Pro Tempore Paul Samaha explained the fixed nature of restricted funds, such as stipends and salaries for USG members. According to Samaha, these funds cannot be changed by the finance director or other USG members without an amendment and vote.

“Stipends and salaries are both in the bylaws; we can’t change those without changing the bylaws,” Samaha said.

Sen. Daniel Newman asked about the Senate Reserve fund. Saucedo explained the basis for the fund, which will essentially be used as a last-minute fund for USG members and committees who hold USG accounts, as has been done in past years. Saucedo also highlighted the amount of money that was over-allocated in previous budgets, which has collected as large amounts of “rollover” funds.

“One of the biggest issues we have with the University right now is that we have a ton of money rolling over,” Saucedo said. “They see us as Undergraduate and Graduate Student Government together, and they have over a million dollars rolling over on a yearly basis.”

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Christian Edwards was the Finance Director for the Undergraduate Student Government. He is the Treasurer. The Daily Trojan regrets the error.