Balancing major changes in the shape of its funding, the Undergraduate Assembly passed a budget last night allocating nearly $1.3 million to the various student government bodies for the 2002-2003 academic year.
Among the changes for the upcoming school year is the approximately $300,000 increase in the UA's overall budget. The substantial boost is due to a rise in the upcoming year's tuition and the addition of two sources of funding from the Provost's office -- a performing arts grant and a matching fund for Penn's preceptorial program.
Despite the additional resources available to the UA for the upcoming fiscal year, the financial responsibilities of Penn's umbrella student government organization have also increased dramatically.
The UA will have to make up for a loss of funding from the budget of the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life. In past years, VPUL has funded various student government events including the "No Place Like Penn" weekend.
In addition, the costs of many events, including Spring Fling, are likely to rise significantly in the upcoming year due to the demand on student government groups to hire exclusively unionized security and labor workers.
These pushes and pulls on the UA budget will also affect the budgets of the Nominations and Elections Committee, the Student Commission on Undergraduate Education, the Social Planning and Events Committee and the Student Activities Council, as well as the four class boards.
UA Chairwoman Dana Hork, a College senior, said she believes the work the group did on the new budget is a highlight of its accomplishments for the school year.
"Allocating the $1.3 million dollar budget to the other branches of student government is probably one of the most important functions we serve," Hork said.
Despite Hork's strong opinion, only 19 of the 33 elected UA members were present at the decisive meeting.
The job of dividing funds among groups was eased significantly by the self-imposed budget cuts that the NEC and the UA enacted. Both groups cut costs by more than $1,000 this year.
However, SCUE's budget cut of nearly $12,000 was a result of the fact that the student group failed to use the funds it was allocated last year for its proposed town meeting and majors fair, among other items.
"It's a big cut from last year... but it is more in line with what we felt was appropriate based on this year's spending," UA Treasurer and budget author Seth Schreiberg said.
On the other end of the spectrum, SPEC requested an extra $92,000 in funding. The large change is due to loss of funding from VPUL, as well as additional costs in securing talent, hiring security and the unionization of workers at events.
While SPEC did not receive its request in full, the body was granted approximately $30,000 in additional funding for its events.
The money for SPEC is broken down within the budget into allocations for the group's ten branches, which include Connaissance and film and concerts.
However, once the group is allocated a certain amount, its administrators essentially have free reign over how to spend it.
Money was also allocated in lump sums to each of the class boards in varying amounts ranging from $6,550 to $14,000. That money can be used at the discretion of each board for class activities, such as a performance by comedian Eddie Ifft, which the junior class sponsored last night.
Any leftover funds from any student government organization go into the reserve funds for SAC.
SAC received approximately $400,000 from the UA to serve the over $2.5 million in requests from various student groups it has received.
Despite this gap in funds, the group's leaders said they are mostly satisfied with its level of funding.
"It was a fair budget. SAC got a resources increase, but there was also an increase in the number of groups that have been recognized," said SAC representative Simon Bland, a Wharton sophomore.
