The Finance Board met Saturday and Sunday to prepare its recommendations for the Student Association Assembly’s meeting tonight.

The Finance Board made cuts to the student organizations’ budgets in order to reduce its deficit. There was approximately $500,000 of the student fee to allocate for the fall 2005 semester, but the organizations requested almost twice that amount.

The role of the Finance Board in the budgeting process is to review the monetary proposals of each of the student organizations’ events for the upcoming semester and decide how much of the student fee to allocate to each group. The Finance Board’s recommendations are then brought before SA where they are either approved by the Assembly or sent back to the Finance Board.

Deliberations began with funding for groups that require yearly funding from the student fee for operating costs such as SA, HillTV and Syracuse University Ambulance.SA’s budget proposal had a memo attached that gave the Finance Board a list of what it considered ‘the only cuttable items’ from its funding. Comptroller Andrew Urankar asked the Finance Board to disregard these remarks and look at the entire budget as it would any other student organization.

The Finance Board also decided to allow funding for stipends to be paid to both the Finance Board comptroller and the SA president. The stipends give the SA president and comptroller $4,000 each for housing costs throughout the year.

Tacked onto the SA budget was the funding proposal for OrangeSeeds, a leadership group for freshman students and peer mentors. OrangeSeeds was the primary organizer of this year’s The Big Event community service project.

Several of the Finance Board members questioned SA’s reasoning in merging the OrangeSeeds budget with its own, citing examples of how it could easily be its own organization.

The Finance Board also decided to cut the $5,000 requested by SA for the 22 OrangeSeeds members and their peer mentors to go on a retreat this fall, using the reasoning that the same retreat was held in Lawrinson Hall last fall.

Next year’s The Big Event was funded by the Finance Board, with money allocated for the use of paint, gardening tools and other miscellaneous supplies that would be needed for community service.

Another part of SA’s budget proposal requested money for co-sponsorships of events with other student organizations. Urankar said the Finance Board is pushing for more groups to co-sponsor events.

‘I don’t think enough groups are aware of co-sponsorship,’ Urankar said.

Because Syracuse University Ambulance did not attend its hearings after it submitted its budget, the Finance Board had to decide whether or not to fund the group.

SUA asked for approximately $50,000, a request unusually high for the group because the university recently purchased a new ambulance, Urankar said. The ambulance is in need of equipment such as stretchers and medical supplies, according to SUA’s budget proposal.

‘If we cut (SUA) then the university loses a valuable service,’ Urankar said during the deliberations. ‘We need to provide this service, but we need to be consistent.’

The Finance Board decided to only fund SUA the same amount it was allocated last year and recommended the organization appeal for the remainder of its needed funds.

During the second day of Finance Board deliberations, the members made their final decisions on budget allocations for the remaining student groups.

Before the deliberations involving these groups began, the Finance Board discussed ways by which to limit its deficit in the most efficient way possible. The members decided to cut the funding of the student groups that either did not fill out budget requests correctly or did not show up to Finance Board hearings.

But in order to give these groups a chance at funding, the Finance Board set aside more than $45,000 to be used for groups that appeal the budget proposals.

Urankar suggested the Finance Board members set aside the money not only for student organizations hosting events, but also student publications that incorrectly filled out budget requests. Among these publications were La Voz and Jerk Magazine.

Before the Finance Board began its deliberations on University Union, Finance Board member Phillip Burke requested the meeting be closed to the public. Following this motion, Urankar suspended the meeting and placed a call to Dean of Students and SA adviser Roy Baker.

Urankar said if any Finance Board member made a request to close the meeting, Baker requested he be notified. Baker privately met with the Finance Board members while the meeting was still suspended and without the presence of a Daily Orange reporter or other members of the public.

After Baker spoke with the Finance Board, the motion to close the meeting dropped and the deliberations continued.

The Finance Board recommended funding for UU Concerts for the Juice Jam music festival which is to be held this fall. One of the tier-two concerts requested was cut along with two out of the four Bandersnatch shows requested. The Finance Board members recommended UU request funding from the rollover fund in order to fund the events it cut from UU’s budget.

Urankar said the reason the Finance Board considers funding for large organizations such as UU first is because cutting even one event from its proposal takes away large portions of the deficit.

The Finance Board was able to balance the budget by reviewing each of the student organizations’ budget requests and determining which events could be cut based on the interest of SU students.

After the Finance Board members made the final cuts, the remaining money was placed into the appeals fund for student groups that appeal the funding allocated to them.

ASST. NEWS EDITOR EDDIE BEEBY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.

Published on April 17, 2005 at 12:00 pm