Arianna Otero / Contributing Writer
The Student Government Association Senate unanimously approved the 2022-23 Activity and Service Fee Budget during Mar. 14’s senate meeting.
The senate rejected the original budget on Mar. 7.
The original problems the senate had with the budget were the lack of funding for the legislative branch and the Graduate and Professional Student Committee (GPSC). Approval of the budget depended on allocating more funding to these two groups.
Their rejection led to an emergency budget deliberation meeting on Mar. 10 where SGA’s budget committee worked towards making those allocations and they were able to do so, doubling both the Legislative Branch and GPSC.
The legislative branch received an increase of $20,000, going from $20,000 to $40,000. GPSC received an increase of around $120,000, going from $129,050 to $240,000.
Another part of SGA that took an increase was the presidential discretionary which gained an increase of $5,000, going from $25,000 to $30,000.
To allocate the money for these increases, cuts were made to other university organizations.
“The budget committee made cuts that wouldn’t affect operations on each of the entities,” said SGA President Alexander Rubido. “Truthfully, the cuts that were made should have never had to be made, but we did them in an effort to appease the senate and to ensure that the budget met the senate’s expectation.”
Significant cuts were made to Homecoming, Student Programming Council (SPC), Vice Presidential’s Discretionary and four separate FIU entities.
Homecoming received a cut of $30,000, taking it from $470,000 to $440,000. SPC received a cut of $50,000, which brought it down from $590,000 to $540,000.
The vice presidential discretionary fund was cut at nearly $7,000, going from an original $7,000 down to $117.
FIU at I-75’s funds were cut $3,000, going from $40,000 to $37,000. FIU in DC’s funds were cut $5,000, going from $60,000 to $55,000. FIU Online’s funds were cut $2,000, going from $190,000 to $188,000, and lastly, FIU E-Sports’s funds were cut $1,000, going from $35,000 to $34,000.
The total reductions for these organizations amount to $11,000.
The senate passed the new budget unanimously.
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