UA's yearly budget met with satisfaction

The Undergraduate Assembly spent Sunday night gearing up for next week's annual budget meeting.

Every year, the UA receives money - a percentage of the general fee in student tuition - to allocate to themselves and four other branches of student government: the Nominations and Elections Committee, the Social Planning and Events Committee, the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education and the Class Boards.

Although they do not directly allocate to the Student Activities Center, SAC receives a lump sum of the money remaining after the other distributions are complete.

Prior to the UA Budget Committee's allocations, each student group must submit a budget request.

This year, the UA received $1.62 million to allocate. And, contrary to most years, no student group submitted an appeal to the budget it was given.

Wharton senior and UA chairman Brett Thalman pointed to the dialogue among student groups throughout the entire year as the key to this rare, uncontested budget.

Some significant financial changes this year include funding for SCUE's semi-annual policy paper and the senior Class Board for Hey Day clean-up costs, as well as increased funding for Preceptorials - short, non-credit seminars taught by Penn faculty.

There was also a $13,500 increase for Spring Fling concerts to improve the quality of the music performances during the weekend festivities.

Also this week in the UA:

n The UA officially adopted a new logo into its bylaws. The logo will appear on all official communications and on a banner that will be purchased later this semester.

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