Saint Mary's Student Government Association (SGA) approved its 2009-2010 budget at its meeting Monday night.
The total budget this year comes to $300,000, which comes from each student's student activity fee and carryover from previous boards.
The budget has increased from last year by 20 percent overall. This is due to the inclusion of previous boards carryover into the budget and also Saint Mary's enrollment being up to 1,664 students.
The extra 20 percent has been distributed across all of the allotments within the budget. The budget also includes setting aside $55,000 in the SGA account to carry-over into next year.
SGA decided this year to give equal allotments to each class' board. In previous years money for class boards was determined by that particular classes enrollment. This year each class board will be given $2,000 to work with.
"We decided we'd rather be fair and consistent across the board," student body president Jenny Hoffman said.
Now that the SGA budget is finalized clubs can begin to apply for their start-up allotment of money. The allotment for clubs is for their day-to-day expenses, but for special trips, conferences and events they can also apply for sponsorships.
Sponsorships were formerly co-sponsorships, but SGA is changing the title of this allotment because more often than not SGA puts forth more money than the club itself does. "Sponsorships" therefore is more apt language, Hoffman said.
Clubs will also be required to bring in receipts to show how their money is being spent so SGA can see that funds are properly being used, Hoffman said.
Other considerations that the budget makes are for new computers in the SGA office, covering salaries of student workers to keep the student center open until midnight and the Campus Readership Program, which provides newspapers from around the nation to students free of charge.
SGA also set up a contingency fund for SGA initiatives. It is allotted for possibly putting printers in dorms, which is something that SGA is working towards. The contingency fund is also sort of a "possibility fund," for anything they might need extra money for throughout the year, Hoffman said.
