Statewide budget cuts are hitting Florida A&M campus harder than ever
The University has cut the budget of the Campus Activity Board, an organization that oversees student activities, by 62 percent.
That will mean less money for student events this year.
The Activity and Service budget allotted $12,500 to the CAB for this upcoming school year. That’s a decrease of $20,272 compared to $32,772 from last school year.
The CAB chair helps to oversee student activities and may see a decrease in salary from $2,500 last year to $998.99 this year.
The CAB, which includes presidents and vice-presidents of each class along with the CAB chair, provides activities on campus with money from students’ activities and service fees.
The Board held an unofficial meeting last Thursday to discuss the tight budget and its effect on student events.
Activities for the fall and spring semesters will be considered using strict guidelines that will be put in place over the next few weeks, according to CAB Chair Anquan Brown.
The fifth-year pharmacy student from Miami said his board will decide whether each event is worth having.
Brown, who serves as a liaison between the CAB, administrators and the Student Government Association is working closely with the Office of Student Activities.
He recently saw the effect of budget cuts when planning ‘Welcome Week,’ an annual event for the University’s freshmen.
The event “could not be as effective” due to a lack of money, he said.
A tight budget “leaves no room for us to do things,” Brown said.
Taking this into consideration, he said that each class cabinet should “try to take a different approach” when planning events for the year.
Each of the five classes, including the graduate class, will receive $2,000 for the school year compared to $1,000 last year.
In light of a tighter budget, class cabinets are being proactive in fundraising.
Sophomore class president, Daniel Jenkins, said that his class raised $700 over the summer with corporate sponsorship and will continue to do so. Partners include Dallas Chamber of Commerce, Big Brother Big Sister and Integrity Security.
“We took a personal approach and contacted the ‘heads’…we explained our outreach programs,” said Jenkins, a second-year accounting student from Dallas,
Class presidents and vice-presidents may agree to combine events in order to stretch money divvied between their respective classes.
Therefore, if two classes have a similar idea, they may develop a joint event Brown said.
The final decision of allotment of money for each class will be made within the next three weeks once freshmen elections are over.