ASUI President Max Cowan has been analyzing where cutbacks and reallocations should be made in the ASUI budget for the 2017 fiscal year.
Cowan said ASUI receives a total budget of about $1 million and this goes to all the departments under The Department of Student Involvement.
Karstetter
Deciding where money should be allocated has been a challenge, but Cowan said he would like to see more funds be put into registered student organizations. He said this is one of the most impactful pieces of ASUI”s spending since it reaches such a large group of students.
“The problem is that every year we max out that (student organization”s) budget,” Cowan said. “We have $67,000 to give to registered student organizations and every year we have more requests than we are able to fill. So it would be nice to be able to ensure that we are funding every worthy organization based on the merits of the funding request rather than the limitations of our budget.”
Cowan said to give more funds to student organizations then more money would have to be given to the ASUI Funding Board, which provides students with those funds. Being able to provide money to the 200 UI student organizations for programming, conferences and other events is something Cowan said he finds worthwhile.
Cowan said he has been working with incoming ASUI President-elect Austin Karstetter to ensure the budget next year reflects Karstetter”s priorities.
“The biggest change is probably going to be made to Funding Board,” Karstetter said. “It”s really important and if we aren”t using the money in other areas of ASUI then it should go to students organizations.”
This is a topic Karstetter said he and Cowan both strongly agree on. He said they will likely reallocate money from the ASUI director”s budget to give to Funding Board.
“We are looking to cut the Director”s budget from $8,500 to $6,000 because the directors were not spending money, and we want to put that into Funding Board which is for clubs and organizations.”
Karstetter said he would also like to see some programs, such as Vandal Shuttle, receive funding in the upcoming fiscal year.
“Along with that I want to help Vandal Entertainment, whose funding has been cut over the past couple of years,” Karstetter said. “I think we could be doing a lot more late night programs and activities for students in the (Idaho) Commons.”
Besides maintaining a stable budget for Vandal Entertainment, Karstetter said he wants more funding to be put toward the It”s On Us sexual assault awareness campaign to give it a larger presence on campus.
Karstetter said working with Cowan on the budget for next year has aided him in his transition into his presidency.
“Max, as current president, has been so awesome and transparent with me and really has given me a say in the budget,” Karstetter said. “It helps ASUI out because next year, rather than me trying to find funds for different things, Max has already been working with me to find funds for things I want to implement. That way I don”t have to make big changes to the budget next year because it will already be set in stone.”
The budget will be finalized next week and sent to ASUI senate Wednesday for approval.
Jessica Gee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JessicaC_Gee