Karen Garcia |
ASUP senators allocated the entirety of ASUP’s $80,000 surplus to several clubs, student organizations and student services on Monday at the last Senate meeting of the year.
The surplus was a result of a year-long discussion about the Major Project Fund (MPF). After administrators encouraged students to repurpose those funds for student activities, senators voted not to spend the money on major projects.
In the days leading up to the voting, ASUP advisor Jeromy Koffler said he urged senators to vote wisely and noted that he trusted their abilities to navigate through unique circumstance of the surplus.
“They’re not going to want to irresponsibly throw money at stuff,” Koffler said. “It’s great. You want student leaders to be prudent in their decision-making.”
Most of the approved funding items came from a list compiled by senators over the past few weeks from constituent suggestions, along with requests sent directly to Treasurer Jessie Robinson. Senators spent nearly three hours voting on requests that ranged from $550 to $60,000.
The largest sum of money approved for a single item was toward funding for next year’s Rock the Bluff at $28,397, followed by $13,000 for new Espresso UP coffee machines and $8,040 for the Villa Drum Squad’s new equipment and supplies.
The surplus consisted of 90 percent of 2014’s unspent MPF, fall semester’s unspent MPF, and this semester’s MPF.
Before students passed Resolution 15-01 last month and replaced the MPF with the Campus Traditions Fund (CTF), 10 percent of the $85 fee paid by every student at the beginning of each semester went toward the MPF.
If the senate had been unable to allocate the entire surplus on Monday, senators would have had to unanimously agree to bypass current senate laws stating that leftover money at the end of a fiscal year must go into the ASUP endowment; pushing the remaining funds into next semester’s MPF.
Karen Garcia is a reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at garciaka17@up.edu.
