Last night, the GUSA Finance and Appropriations Committee passed a new version of the Fiscal Year 2012 Student Activities Budget based on the appeals of three groups that did not receive the full allocation they asked for from the body.

The first appeal, from the Georgetown Program Board, originally asked for $173,000 and received $70,000. GUSA agreed to increase their allocation to $83,000 in order to make a fall concert more likely.

Two groups that did not receive funding in the original budget also appealed to GUSA. The Center for Multicultural Equity and Access Rites of Passage requested $10,000, and, after appeals, received $1,000. D.C. Reads did not receive any funding from its appeal because, according to an email from FinApp Chair Colton Malkerson (COL ’13), it “does not meet the definition of where Student Activities Fee money should go, which is limited to campus activities and Georgetown student life.”

GUSA will hear one more appeal from A Different Dialogue next week before it prepares its final budget for passage by the full Senate.

As it stands, the total allocation for Fiscal Year 2012 is more than twice the amount allocated for last year, with FinApp doling out $800,000, as compared with $360,000 allocated last year.

After the jump, see the proposed budget and a visual breakdown of the funding.

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This morning, GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee released its student activities budget for the 2012 fiscal year. Clubs requested more than $1.6 million in funding and received $800,000, as per the plan established in last semester’s Student Activities Fee Endowment reform.

“Although we had more money to give out this year, we were faced with much larger funding requests than last year,” the report reads. “Student organizations realized that SAFE Reform meant more money was available, and they responded by requesting more money to meet the needs of their groups.”

The highlights of the budget include $14,000 for the oft-underfunded College Readership Program, which was suspended last semester, as well as $150,000 for the Center for Social Justice’s Advisory Board for Student Organizations. According to the report, Fin App allocated the money to restore CSJ ABSO’s reserves, expand ABSO groups, sponsor Alternative Spring Break trips, and purchase vans. $12,500 was allocated to CollegiateLink Software, a student organization management tool.

Despite not receiving its total request of $125,500, the Student Activities Commission saw its funding increase by the largest magnitude from the previous fiscal year — it received $90,000, more than triple the amount it received in 2011. (Earlier this week, SAC voted use its reserve money to cover a potential budget shortfall in the event that GUSA reduced its funding.) The report explained that the money will cover approximately 85 percent of funding requests — if the numbers include outside funding sources.

“Because of the very large requests from advisory boards this year, unfortunately we were not able to give anyone their full request. We are confident, however, that this drastic increase in SAC’s allocation will allow it to fund clubs at a much higher rate than past years,” the report reads.

The Advisory Board for Club Sports received $250,000, the largest share allocated from the budget. The money will be used to subsidize club sports teams and fees.

Groups that requested funding now have a week to appeal their amount of allocated fund. Then, Fin App will vote on the budget. If it passes out of the committee, the GUSA Senate will vote on the budget no sooner than a week later.

[Editor's Note: Due to an error in the FinApp report, an earlier version of this post reported that SAC requested $225,500, not $125,500 — the actual amount requested.]

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Last night, the GUSA Financial and Appropriations Committee held its second town hall meeting to discuss the Student Activities Fee Endowment reform plan.

Attendees discussed the previously proposed reform plan, as well as a potential increase in the student activities fee. According to Greg Laverriere (COL ’12), FinApp Committee chairperson, Georgetown’s student activities fee is less than 75 percent of fees at peer institutions. The proposed increase could range from $5 to $100.

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Tuesday night’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Finance and Appropriation Committee was all anti-climax, with the Senators having to put off voting on the draft budget they put together before Spring Break until Thursday.

Because details are still unclear on how the Student Activities Commission and the Performing Arts Advisory Council will adopt the remaining reforms of the six GUSA compelling the advisory boards to adopt, the FinApp Committee opted to hold off on passing the budget on to the Senate tonight until those details were fleshed out, instead of allocating $0 to PAAC and SAC and funding them later. Either way, the Senate should still consider the budget this upcoming Sunday.

For their part, SAC has yet to adopt an accountable selection process for their Chair. Senator Greg Laverriere (COL ’12) reported that SAC Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ’11) has just named her successor using the same closed process by which former chairs Aakib Khaled (SFS ’10) and Sophia Behnia (COL ’09) selected their successors.

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