SGA works with half-million dollar budget funded by student activity fee
Melissa Tinklepaugh
Issue date: 12/5/08 Section: College Life
SUNY Potsdam's undergraduate students pay an activity fee each semester, which has created Student Government Association's budget of $518,944 for the 2008-2009 academic year.
The Mandatory Student Activity Fee is $80 per semester, which began this fall semester. Though the fee is presently mandatory for registration at SUNY Potsdam, the SUNY Board of Trustees requires the students of each SUNY campus to determine by referendum every two years whether the activity fee should be mandatory for their campus. SUNY Potsdam students voted to keep the activity fee mandatory in spring 2007. According to policy, the referendum should be up for decision this spring, to be voted on the day of SGA Executive Board elections.
With its half-million dollar budget, SGA budgets student groups, funds Venture Outdoors and Pete's Place and funds student trips to conferences, among its many other allocations and services. The money is appropriated by vote of Assembly and Senate, the representative branches, which vote on the budgets of SGA-sponsored groups every spring and vote on funding requests from student groups and members of the SUNY Potsdam campus community at weekly meetings. Funding requests typically come from contingency funding, which has $3,793; contingency conference, which has $2,037.80; program funding, which currently has $11,018.88; budget supplements, which has $42,837.19, and equipment replacement funding, which has $27,131.43.
Individual students can request funds from the contingency line, which, according to "Financial Policies and Procedures," is available to any member of the SUNY Potsdam community "to provide financial support for events, activities, etc for the benefit of the community." According to SGA Treasurer Leanne Merrill, the contingency conference line is a subsection of the contingency line used to fund student attendance at off-campus academic conferences.
"I feel that there can be a subsidiary benefit to our campus and to campus activities for students to attend and present at such events off campus," Merrill said. "This is especially true if they bring something back to campus with them, such as a presentation, publication, or ideas for improvement of an existing campus institution. I also feel that part of the educational, cultural, and social enrichment that is part of the Potsdam experience can be gained through such endeavors."
The Mandatory Student Activity Fee is $80 per semester, which began this fall semester. Though the fee is presently mandatory for registration at SUNY Potsdam, the SUNY Board of Trustees requires the students of each SUNY campus to determine by referendum every two years whether the activity fee should be mandatory for their campus. SUNY Potsdam students voted to keep the activity fee mandatory in spring 2007. According to policy, the referendum should be up for decision this spring, to be voted on the day of SGA Executive Board elections.
With its half-million dollar budget, SGA budgets student groups, funds Venture Outdoors and Pete's Place and funds student trips to conferences, among its many other allocations and services. The money is appropriated by vote of Assembly and Senate, the representative branches, which vote on the budgets of SGA-sponsored groups every spring and vote on funding requests from student groups and members of the SUNY Potsdam campus community at weekly meetings. Funding requests typically come from contingency funding, which has $3,793; contingency conference, which has $2,037.80; program funding, which currently has $11,018.88; budget supplements, which has $42,837.19, and equipment replacement funding, which has $27,131.43.
Individual students can request funds from the contingency line, which, according to "Financial Policies and Procedures," is available to any member of the SUNY Potsdam community "to provide financial support for events, activities, etc for the benefit of the community." According to SGA Treasurer Leanne Merrill, the contingency conference line is a subsection of the contingency line used to fund student attendance at off-campus academic conferences.
"I feel that there can be a subsidiary benefit to our campus and to campus activities for students to attend and present at such events off campus," Merrill said. "This is especially true if they bring something back to campus with them, such as a presentation, publication, or ideas for improvement of an existing campus institution. I also feel that part of the educational, cultural, and social enrichment that is part of the Potsdam experience can be gained through such endeavors."
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