Meeting called to order at 5:36pm
Present: Joy, Ashley, Christine, David
Minutes approved.
Confirmation of James McCauley:
Voting:
For: 3
Opposed:0
Passes
Equipment for Army ROTC:
Igor enters at 5:40pm
Christine: Why isnt the school paying for this?
SGA Advisor: SGA wanted to be a partner to the
organization and UMBC by providing some money
that they need.
David: We can wait till next week to ask Jay
about this.
Initial Budgeting Process:
David: The process didnt go that well this time
and it took up a lot of time and often there
wasn't even
anyone at the hearings. We need to figure out a
way to fix this so I can train next year
treasurer.
There was an idea to scrap budget hearings and
just make it purely based on additional allocation
and making
it a staggered process. So basically the
organization would have to come witihin two weeks of
their event.
Fouad: What did organizations think about the
budget hearings?
David: A lot of them didnt like it but I dont
know if they'll be happy with having all money be
through additional
allocations. The argument for the additional
allocations process is that its a lot stronger and
more oragnized.
We can do it staggered so that they're already
into planning their event and the whole allocation
will be a lot more
definite.
SGA Advisor: The problem with doing the staggered
additional allocations process is that you wont
know when the bulk
of the requests will come. You'll be going into
it blindly and you wont know how much you should
give out at any point
in time.
Joy: Well the initial budget process could be
done in such a way that they fill out their
paperwork and their requests but
they dont have to come and meet us at the time.
What they put down on paper could be given
priority so we know how much
we should expect to give out and when the events
will generally occur.
David: Yes, or we could get organizations to come
to us with their biggest events or their
traditional events and
we could allocate them money for those, but they
wouldnt have to come in at the time. They would
come in around 2
weeks before the actual event when theyre more
sure of the details.
SGA Advisor: The problem is that you cant reserve
money for an event that you have no idea whether
you're willing to fund.
If you do the staggered process then if an
organization was requesting say $3000 then you could
ask them to let you know
3 months in advance or something along that line.
Joy: Well what happens when an organizations
comes asking for equipment?
David: Well equipment has to be related to an
event. The initial budgeting could be simply for
equipment and administrative
activities of the organization. Then the
staggered additional allocations would be solely for
events.
Ashley: I wouldnt mind doing away with the whole
budget hearings process but if we're going to do
the additional allocations
the problem is going to be people wont know what
theyre doing in 3 months.
David: Well the problem is going to be worse if
they have to declare their events in the initial
budget hearing process.
Christine: I just thought the initial hearing
process was a mess especially for the organizations.
And its not like we're
going to fund everything in the initial budget
process, we often just push it to additional
allocations.
Joy: But is it worth having organizations know in
general waht they want at the beginning of the
year?
David: Well I think thhey should be doing that on
their own, we dont have to babysit them. And we
dont want to hold money for
an organization when they give us their plan for
the year and then find out the event isnt worth
it.
Yasmin: But the whole idea of having it 3 months
in advance if its over $3000 then we'll have
already spent that money and
itll defeat the purpose of ending initial budget
hearings.
David: I agree.
joy: then everything under $1000 will be within 2
weeks?
SGA Advisor: Well why dont you go by days?
David: Ok so above $3000 is going to be 90 days.
And lets make it 10 days for under $1000.
SGA Advisor: But suppose someone submits
something tomorrow for an event in 12 days then you still
only have one meeting.
David: Ok then, 10 working days.
SGA Advisor: This is the kind of thing several
people have to sit down for with the policy guide
and figure all the details
out.
Igor: My concern with the staggered system is
that right now if we know some events occuring but
then someone else applies
for money and we dont have enough for all events
then how do we decide between them. Are we going
to discriminate against
the smaller events?
David: Well I guess we could decide on a case by
case basis depending on how organized and
beneficial the event seems.
Joy: Any other comments?
Roll Call: Igor, David, Christine, Joy, Ashley.
Meeting adjourned at 6:11pm