On Feb. 8, A.K. Bennett, NSU undergraduate student government association president, announced, through a press release to the student clubs and organizations of the Inter Organizations Council, that SGA has spent all of its funds for the year and will not be able to approve any more requests for funding.
Bennett said prior to January, the Office of Student Activity Fee Accounts made an accounting error, which led student government officials to believe that they had an additional $30,000 in funding.
“What was affected was the senate’s knowledge of an accurate balance in January, therefore hindering their ability to make informed decisions,” said Bennett.
Greissy Amorocho, accounts manager in the Office of Student Activity Fee Accounts, confirmed that the error was made. But, Amorocho said, the error in no way affected SGA’s December 2011 funding allocations.
“[In] late January 2012, this office made a posting error when it listed some debits as credits on the SGA’s winter allocations,” said Amorocho. “The error was immediately noticed and corrected within a 24-hour period and SGA was notified accordingly.”
Amorocho said proper training is needed to manage the senate’s budget.
“The complexity of the senate’s budget is highly difficult to interpret, particularly without formal training. Our records indicate that the current treasurer for SGA has not been treasurer trained. As per Student Activity Fee Policy, a treasurer is not recognized by our office until he or she completes this training,” she said.
Bennett acknowledged the treasurer failed to attend the mandatory trainings and SGA has now appointed a new treasurer.
“We selected a new treasurer towards the end of January, Ted Delcima. Delcima is scheduled to attend treasurer training this week.”
Christina Pere, senior psychology major and president of the psychology club said it is a shame that [SGA’s] funding ran out.
“While this is stressful, I feel that it may be a great opportunity however, for clubs to learn how to successfully fundraise and utilize their skills when fundraising.”
Bennett said the growth in the number of student clubs and organizations on campus, which the undergraduate SGA funds, and stagnant university funding have also contributed to the quick depletion of the budget.
Sean Pepin, assistant director of Student Activities, which oversees the operation of campus clubs and organizations, said that in August 2009 there were 45 student clubs and organizations. Now, there are 92. He said, in comparison to last year, the Office of Student Activities has facilitated double the number of student events, from 42 to 81.
“Student Activities will easily break 100 student organizations by the end of this year,” he said. “In terms of events, we hear a strong demand for more events at a higher quality, but with budget restrictions, we are unsure the number of events or quality will go up.”
With this knowledge, Bennett said SGA has taken measures to persuade university administration to increase SGA’s budget, but it has been a very slow process. SGA recently voted on a resolution to create a Student Services Fee Advisory Board, a body that will make recommendations on the allocation of, and perform audits on, the student services fee allocation.
NSU SGAs do not have the authority to allocate their respective student services fees. University administrators allocate anywhere from $10-14 million in student services fees, of which only 4-7 percent is allocated to PanSGA and the individual SGAs for disbursement to student clubs and organizations and to facilitate student programs.
Bennett presented the undergraduate SGA’s resolution to the PanSGA on Feb. 15 for consideration.
