Student Senate approves 2019-20 budget

Senate Chamber before their weekly meeting.
Photo Submitted by Austin Dixon.

In Monday evening’s Student Senate meeting, FAMU’s Activities and Services annual budget report was officially approved at slightly under $3 million for the 2019-20 academic school year.

Although the annual A&S budget required some minor changes in terms of number crunching, the Student Senate was able to find a way to fund numerous entities on campus. While the process to make sure everything was correct before finalizing the annual budget report was a tedious one, Organization and Finance Committee chairwoman Taylar Hall described how the process was worth the time and effort.

“I think the process was extremely tedious, and what people don’t know is that before this budget comes to the floor, we have a budget committee and that committee has been meeting every Saturday since February 2 this year,” Hall said.

“This committee has continuously been working on this budget and has been looking at it line item by line item, every piece, and every dollar, to make sure everything goes into the right place,” Hall added. “This tedious process was important because it ensured that everything was done right for the student body in the best way possible.”

Senate President Rochard Moricette, recently elected student body president, believes the passing of the annual budget is one of SGA’s most important functions.

“As the legislative body we have the power to appropriate the funds (Activities and Service fees), so this annual budget will essentially dictate the direction that campus life will go for the 2019-20 school year,” Moricette said.

With the official budget finalized, some of the notable entities that will be seeing an increase in funding next year include the Hansel E. Tookes Student Recreation Center, FAMU’s Homecoming Week, FAMU’s Office of Student Activities, the Marching 100, the Royal Court, and the Educational Research Center for Childhood Development.

Moricette believes that these increases will represent the university well moving forward.

“We’re talking about more funding for the campus recreation center to make sure they're open later and possibly even on the weekends,” Moricette said. “We want students to have a great experience at homecoming, as well as alumni, faculty, and staff,” Moricette added.

“Also it was imperative that we were able to give more funding to the Marching 100, to cover their cost of meals and their housing for pre-drill,” Moricette said.

With the increased funding for the Royal Court and the presidential ambassadors, the Student Senate is projecting an increase in enrollment, which added $200,000 to its annual budget total.

“The budget got approved with the presidential ambassadors, the Royal Court, and other recruiting aspects of the university, which helped get additional funding to the budget compared to year’s past, due to an enrollment increase that we’re expecting,” Moricette said.

“It was a $200,000 increase that was allocated and distributed to different entities on the budget.”