Student Senate President Rochard Moricette will be the student body president for 2019-2020.
Photo Submitted by Rochard Momricette.
During Monday evening’s Student Senate meeting, minor revisions were made to the 2019-20 annual budget that had been approved at last week’s meeting.
The initial budget of about $3 million was $6,000 more than the anticipated monies available. Although there were some errors when sending in the proposed budget, Organization and Finance Committee chairwoman Taylar Hall was able to describe the miscalculation and the process behind fixing the issues she described as “minor.”
“It was super important to fix this issue because in order for this budget to get passed it has to go through the budget office,” Hall said. “When it was sent to the budget office they reminded us that it was $6,000 over, and it was also super important because, we wanted to be sure to appropriate the money properly to the student body,” Hall added.
There was no one individual student organization that caused the budget to go over the amount available, Hall said, but rather a line item within the Student Senate.
“We didn’t over-budget any specific organization, but when we did the calculations, we didn’t include a line-item within SGA and that line item was the deputies in the executive branch for their pay,” Hall said. “Their pay was $6,000 and we didn’t budget it in originally and as a result of that, the budget went over,” Hall said.
While there wasn’t anything wrong in terms of the amount of money that was included in the budget, the Student Senate focused on Monday on rearranging particular line items to make sure all the branches within SGA are operating in a productive and efficient manner.
Senate President Pro Tempore Jalen Jackson was able to elaborate more on the situation.
“There really wasn’t much to revise. The student senators are really doing a good job of analyzing the bills before they come up to the floor,” Jackson said. “The edits that were made in the meeting were pertaining to moving money around so that every branch of SGA is sufficiently supported.
“There weren’t any changes in the numbers, just rearrangements in the line items so that everyone can function efficiently,” Jackson added.