Though SMU is known for its wealthy students, its chartered student organizations’ bank accounts are not bursting at the seams. These groups often depend on handouts from the Student Senate – SMU’s World Bank.
But Senate’s bank has limited funds and must choose carefully how to allocate money, because money they award comes from student fees.
Two of Senate’s 12 committees, appropriations and finance, are responsible for granting money to organizations.
Chartered groups obtain money from Senate primarily through the appropriations process. The process, beginning in February and ending in late April, structures the budget for the next fiscal year. During appropriations, requests for money can only be made for items used during a one-year period.
“The normal appropriations are for operations,” said student association Comptroller Matt Richardson. “For some student groups it is used to send a certain amount of its members to a national conference.”
Many organizations require items that can be re-used and therefore must obtain them though the capital requests process.
“Capital requests are for any tangible item that an organization needs that will last more than one year,” said finance committee chairman Matt Darrah.
In May, Senate granted $2,500 to the men’s club soccer team for registration and referee fees.
As the season started this fall, the team realized they needed new jerseys.
The team made a capital request for new home and away uniforms through Senate’s finance committee two weeks ago. Senate responded by allotting roughly 20 percent of the semester’s capital funds, $1,930.28, to the team.
“The Finance Committee felt that since these uniforms were league requirements and they wouldn’t be able to play without them. Without the uniforms they wouldn’t be able to have a team,” said Darrah. “Because the useful life of these jerseys was so long, the committee felt that the request wasn’t excessive.”
Capital requests are taken into consideration on a weekly basis. The organization turns in a request form, available in the Student Activities Center of Hughes-Trigg, Friday by 5 p.m. The committee then meets with the organization Monday at 8 p.m. During that meeting, the organization gives a presentation and the committee has an opportunity to ask questions.
“One of the things Senate charges the [finance] committee with is to consider how cost-effective the proposal is but the burden really lies on the student organization,” Darrah said. “They need to make sure they include a lot of detail in their requests, like a comparison of bids and quality of each item.”
The committee then brings its recommendation to Senate on how much funding the organization should receive. The Senate hears the proposal and votes on the following week.
“The most important thing for organizations to realize is that Senate is just a supplement and that their primary source of funding should be through their members or other outside sources,” Darrah said.
Each year students pay $1,500 in fees, $51.50 of which goes to the Senate. For this fiscal year, the amount was raised to $53.50, allowing Senate to allot a greater sum of money to more organizations.
Senate received a total of $750,000 from the university last year. That money was broken into separate accounts. For this fiscal year $470,000 went to student organizations, $10,000 to the capital request fund, $10,000 to summer exec, $40,000 to the rolling appropriations fund and $35,000 to special projects funds.
“The Senate has the responsibility to allocate a portion of the student fee, paid by each student, to the chartered groups of The Students’ Association,” said Student Body Secretary Thomas Kincaid.
