An open forum designed for student organizations to ask questions about Student Association’s approaching budget season drew in one student outside of SA or the Student Task Force, the organizations that hosted the event Tuesday.

‘As a finance board, we receive a lot of complaints about budgets not being passed, but when you look at the audience and you see that it’s a lot of empty seats, you understand how much people truly care about the process,’ said Martin-Abdul Davis, a member of SA’s Finance Board.

The open forum was a collaborative effort between Syracuse University’s Student Task Force, a program that promotes diversity and group collaboration, and SA to answer student organizations’ questions about funding and the budget process before it begins. Budgets are due March 5 at 5 p.m. The panelists included SA President Jon Barnhart, SA Comptroller Jeff Rickert and Davis.

During budget season, SA’s Finance Board reviews budgets submitted by student organizations requesting funding for events they hope to organize for the following semester. The Finance Board’s job is to take funding requests by student organizations for each semester and distribute the money available based on the information provided. The amount and specifics of information provided in requests affects how much money organizations receive.

SA members passed out fliers prior to the open forum, and e-mails were sent out to every student organization president notifying them of the forum, Barnhart said.

Of the 13 attendees, Fernando Maldonado, the co-administration chair of La Lucha, a Hispanic student association, was the only person outside of SA and the Task Force.

Despite the low turnout, the panelists elaborated on the Finance Board’s expectations of student organizations during the budget process. Emphasis was placed on proof of costs for the requested funding and collaboration between different organizations for events.

David Woody, Student Engagement Committee chair and Task Force representative, asked why so many organizations are not funded.

That is due to ‘improper budgets, no proof of costs, no confirmation of space. Most often it’s something so small that it annoys us as Finance Board members that we have to actually come up with reasons for why,’ Davis said.

Rickert strongly encourages student organizations to read the codes in order to understand what the Finance Board expects to see, he said.

‘An incomplete budget is an incomplete budget,’ Rickert said.

The panelists stressed the importance of the proof of costs. If an organization wants to have a speaker who needs funding for travel, food and lodging, it must have documentation from the speaker stating the costs. Publications are required to send four printing quotes. Venue confirmations can be sent through the Student Center and Programming Services. Without proof, funding will not be provided, Martin said.

Rickert said the Finance Board also looks for collaboration between organizations when determining how to fund organizations. Collaboration is part of the Financial Vision, a guide for the Financial Board to use during the budget process.

The importance of collaboration is for organizations with similar events for similar reasons to work together, Barnhart said. The Finance Board is also looking for organizations new to the decision process to work with larger groups in order to gain a greater understanding for future events, he said.

‘Groups have told us they felt forced to collaborate. And we’re in no way trying to force collaboration or cause an event to lose its identity,’ Barnhart said. ‘We just want to give the most groups the most money.’

lgleveil@syr.edu

Published on February 23, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Laurence: lgleveil@syr.edu | @lgleveille