The Undergraduate Senate passed the 2008 Student Government budget on April 18.
The $558,000 budget, which passed on a vote of 15 yea, 2 nay and one absentention, was distributed between the many executive based departments and class and school councils.
In its previous session, the Senate passed a bill that cut the stipend of the elected executives while establishing a pay rate for all other executive cabinet positions, The Eagle previously reported. The bill also officially established Women's Initiative in the SG bylaws.
Because debate on the stipend bill exceeded the amount of time the Senate had allocated for the meeting time, a special session had to be scheduled Wednesday for the Senate to pass the budget.
It took the senators one hour to come to a passable consensus on the budget.
At the meeting, Class of 2009 Senator John Cipriani, amended the budget that the Leadership Committee had passed. At-Large Senator Charlie Biscott joined Cipriani in the amendment that took $2,000 from the Department of Publicity and Recruitment to give to the Student Union Board.
SUB had "a lot of good programming this year," Biscotto said, but it is "a lot harder for SUB to co-sponsor ... not a lot of organizations are interested in seeing more musical entertainment on campus."
Biscotto also said SUB's partner in the Snow Patrol - OK GO concert, IMP, offers dates which do not always match up with dates available in Bender Arena. Biscotto said if IMP dates do not work the extra $2,000 dollars could be an extra cushion for other smaller shows in the Tavern.
The $2,000 came from DOPAR, the main source for the Secretary that is used for advertising SG events throughout the school.
"In situations like these it is impossible to make everyone involved happy," said Jillian Rubino, class of 2009 senator, in an e-mail. "Everyone has great ideas for next year and in order to implement those ideas they all need money ... I think Mr. Cipriani's Amendment and the subsequent amendments to it, created the best possible scenario for all parties."
Comptroller Robert Donigian, a senior in the Kogod School of Business, said he felt the budget process went smoothly.
"John [Cipriani] proposed a very rational, logical amendment," Donigian said in an e-mail. "He brought up a point I failed to mention, and no one else seemed to catch on to, which is that this year's budget didn't get the $18,000 increase that last year's budget got. So, not all departments are able to get increased allotments, and if there is an increase, another department is getting a decrease."
Donigian said the budget process went well because it did not drastically change the amount of money given to the organizations.
"The budget needs to become somewhat set," Donigian said in an e-mail. "Departments should know what to expect and work within that budget rather than hoping for an increase in the next cycle. I think the budget process as a whole went well and the end result is something that can satisfy departments' needs."
However, not everyone was happy with the budget outcome.
Kogod School of Business Senator Andrew Kerai said "the budget is an absolute joke," citing the decrease of funds for the Undergraduate Business Association from the Comptroller's and Leadership Committee's suggestion of $1,800 to the $1,250 the council received.
Kerai said he was "thankful for the support" for his amendment, which offered to take money from the School of Communication for Undergraduate Business Association, but he feels that UBA has "put for all this effort and [gets] gypped" and that "$1,250 won't cut it for [UBA] for a semester, let alone a year"
