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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