Exec. Council plans budget restructure
When Utah State University suffered $9.5 million in budget cuts last year, the Associated Students of USU was forced to trim its budget. Now, ASUSU is looking at restructuring and redistributing the money it is given every year.
A dozen different branches within ASUSU are requesting more than $70,000 in budget increases. Ericka Ensign, Academic vice president of ASUSU, said there needs to be a better structure within the organization, rather than adding more money to the budget.
“The bottom line is people are just going to have to make do,” Ensign said.
The different branches of ASUSU are conducting budget audits to assess the budgetary needs of their groups. Most of these audits will conclude before the end of fall semester.
Ensign said there is an $11,000 cushion that the dozen branches are requesting from. That $11,000 was not asked for at the beginning of the year. That money remains available throughout the year for the different ASUSU leaders to request. Increased budgets totaling more than $70,000 can’t all come from that cushion, Ensign said.
Arts and Lectures Vice President Julie Dethrow is asking for $10,000. She said that is the same amount that was cut when budgeting was done last year. It also happens to be 91 percent of the available cushion. Dethrow compared the arts to the air and said it was vital to people’s lives. She said that is why it is important to have that money in her part of the budget.
Activities Vice President Lindsay Lyman had originally asked for an increase of $38,000 in her office’s budget. Lyman said she will not be asking for that much in her final proposal, but she says her goals will remain the same. One of the bigger goals Lyman has is to bring a big-name group, like the Dave Matthews Band, to Logan. That particular group refused Lyman’s offer of $125,000 to come, but she said that has not deterred her.
“This is not to say that I have given up,” she said. “A lot more goes into this than what people think.”
Lyman said this type of thing might require a raise in student fees. She also said a fee increase won’t be something she will push for because of the tuition increases students have had to deal with.
Ensign said one possible source of help could be the interest earned on the Capital and Support fund. The money in that fund comes from budget surpluses achieved in previous years. Until last year, the fund did not gain any interest, she said. Even though the $205,000 fund is now in a place where it earns interest, Ensign said ASUSU has not decided where that interest should go or if it should even be used at all.
Celestial Bybee, ASUSU president, said it is important to note that the Capital and Support fund cannot be used to cover the budget increases that have been requested, because the increases are permanent and the Capital and Support fund is meant for one-time funding needs.
Capital and Support has been used in the past for things like the candlelight vigil after the attacks of Sept.11 or the anniversary commemoration of those attacks one year later, she said.
–jonryan@cc.usu.edu