2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
SG overspends budget by thousands
Due to ongoing internal issues, officials are looking for new ways to prevent further unaccounted bills
Saja Hindi
Issue date: 7/26/07 Section: News
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When the Wolfline bus company, Viola, called the Student Government office asking for payment for the Red Terror Transit buses' services, officials realized they had either lost or misplaced bills and invoices totaling about $8,675.40 of overspent money.
The University requires that every fee funded department keep a reserve in its budget for emergency situations and SG's reserve was required to be one-twelfth of its $221,250 budget, $18-19,000.
According to David Foxx, student body treasurer, after SG pays off its bills, it will be about $2,000 under the reserve, which he said is not bad since the University allows a leeway of a couple of thousand dollars, and that also meant that SG would not have to cut back from the next year's budget.
"The new fiscal year's budget is fine," Foxx, a junior in political science and history, said. "The problem is during the last administration, for whatever reason, monies were overspent."
According to Mike Giancola, director of the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service and adviser to the SBT, part of the reason the problem arose was due to a transitional period from when Cira Mervin, SG's Office Manager, was out due to personal reasons, though he said he could not discuss personnel issues in depth.
"It's not the case where [SG] depleted the reserve ... [but] the University Budget Office wants you to not rely on that every single year," he said.
Giancola said Student Government has had a surplus of money these past few years and he's encouraged the officers to use the money more wisely.
Although Giancola said he saw some trends, the overspent budget situation was not a problem he anticipated earlier.
Adam Compton, previous student body treasurer and current finance chair, said throughout the year, however, he saw several red flags that pointed to possible problems, which he said he pointed out but had to take responsibility for.
Compton said there were several line items that were not under his control, but were still being paid under the same budget.
The University requires that every fee funded department keep a reserve in its budget for emergency situations and SG's reserve was required to be one-twelfth of its $221,250 budget, $18-19,000.
According to David Foxx, student body treasurer, after SG pays off its bills, it will be about $2,000 under the reserve, which he said is not bad since the University allows a leeway of a couple of thousand dollars, and that also meant that SG would not have to cut back from the next year's budget.
"The new fiscal year's budget is fine," Foxx, a junior in political science and history, said. "The problem is during the last administration, for whatever reason, monies were overspent."
According to Mike Giancola, director of the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service and adviser to the SBT, part of the reason the problem arose was due to a transitional period from when Cira Mervin, SG's Office Manager, was out due to personal reasons, though he said he could not discuss personnel issues in depth.
"It's not the case where [SG] depleted the reserve ... [but] the University Budget Office wants you to not rely on that every single year," he said.
Giancola said Student Government has had a surplus of money these past few years and he's encouraged the officers to use the money more wisely.
Although Giancola said he saw some trends, the overspent budget situation was not a problem he anticipated earlier.
Adam Compton, previous student body treasurer and current finance chair, said throughout the year, however, he saw several red flags that pointed to possible problems, which he said he pointed out but had to take responsibility for.
Compton said there were several line items that were not under his control, but were still being paid under the same budget.
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