ASI and USU budgets will continue to be topic of senate meetings

Associated Students Inc. will discuss the proposed 2009-2010 operating budgets for ASI and the University Student Union, which contain a combined total of about $9.95 million in proposed expenditures, at the senate meeting this afternoon.

Under the proposed budgets, about $6.1 million of student fees would be used to subsidize those expenditures.

Executive Director of ASI Richard Haller, who assembled the 64-page budget draft, said at last week’s senate meeting that the 2009-2010 budget focuses on stabilization.

“We normally expect in each year a little tiny bit of growth,” Haller said. “This year was different.”

ASI will be able to discuss and make changes to the budget before it is finalized in the next few weeks.

Of the $5.65 million in expenditures in the proposed ASI budget, 57 percent would be subsidized by revenue from the $44-per-semester ASI fee — $33 for the summer session — and 43 percent would be paid for with income from sales, grants, investments, donations and other areas.

The need for stabilization is due to projections of enrollment reductions and declines in income from sales and investments, coupled with rising insurance and employee benefits costs.

The proposed budget aims to increase income from operations and cut spending in every major area.

As means of boosting income, the budget cites increases in childcare fees at the Childcare Development Center, projected increases in sales of recyclable commodities and projected increases in the amount given to the university through grants, contracts and donations.

In order to cut expenses in the ASI general fund, the budget proposal includes freezes of ASI hiring and salary increases,  and reductions of stipends for some student government position-holders. ASI staff event funding will be cut in half, and the Working Student Scholarships and Graduate Application Incentive Awards will be suspended.

While there will not be any staff cuts, some positions within ASI left vacant at the end of this year will go unfilled. ASI funding for the Goldmine Yearbook will cease under the proposed budget.

Expenses will also be cut from the Beach Pride Sub-Fund, which funds the Beach Pride Center, club and intramural sports and intercollegiate athletics scholarships.

The cuts include scaling back athletic scholarships made available by the Beach Pride Sub-Fund by about $17,000. This would leave $801,661 — the minimum amount that can be allocated under the terms agreed to in a 2000 fee referendum — available for Beach Pride-funded athletic scholarships.

Student organizations could also take a hit. The 2009-2010 budget holds a $32,564 decline from the current budget in fund allocations for student organizations.

According to Haller, the General Fund portion of the ASI fee has not risen since 1991, while inflation has grown 151 percent in that time.

The budget suggests that ASI “pursue some sort of inflationary relief for the General Fund, either through an inflationary fee adjustment or through the more rigorous recovery of indirect costs from other funds.”

In order to cover general fund shortfalls, portions of the Beach Pride and Student Organizations sub-funds were redirected to cover the gap.

USU budget

The proposed USU budget plans for approximately $4.3 million in expenditures.

Of those expenditures, 66 percent would be subsidized by revenue from the $50-per-semester USU fee — $37 for the summer session — and 34 percent would be paid for with income from sales, grants, investments, donations, user fees and other areas.

According to the budget proposal, funding for student assistants will need to be cut by 23 percent when compared to the current budget.  

Also to help maintain balance, the budget takes $377,811 from “university-held reserves” to be applied to next year’s budget. About 79 percent of this sum will go to fund “pre-opening expenses” for the Student Recreation and Wellness Center, set to open in fall 2010.

The borrowed amount will be used for payroll expenses and $20,000 worth of advertising for the SRWC.

This article was updated at 3:05 a.m., April 23.