2024-25 StuCo budget inequities

ALLI WICHERT
GRAPHIC DESIGNER

EMMA FIGLEWICZ
PHOTO EDITOR

9/30/2024

At the end of every year, Alma College’s Student Budget Allocation Committee (SBAC) comes together to administer and allocate the Student Activates Fund. This fund helps financially support all of the student organizations on campus throughout the academic year. 

Typically, most organizations do not receive the full budget they requested at the end of the previous academic year; however, this year many organizations saw their budget cut drastically. When these budget cuts were released to the student body, it was clear to me and everyone else that the cuts were not distributed evenly throughout all the organizations. 

Unlike in previous years, Alma College has seen a dramatic decrease in class enrollment. Last year, Alma College’s enrollment stood at 1275. This in turn gave the Student Congress (StuCo) a budget of $344,250. This year, Alma College’s enrollment stands at 1130, which gave StuCo a budget of $304,100.

“I believe that student organizations are used to getting a certain amount each year for their organization. Unfortunately, I don’t think they realized the impact that lower enrollment has on their specific organization and amount of money they could possibly receive,” said Damon Brown, Vice President for Student Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer. 

“As budget cuts had to be made by Damon Brown, Cameron and myself, we made it clear that budget cuts must be made under these three tenants: to support campus-wide events, to be spread equally across organizations and to honor the work of the Budget Committee,” said Toby Layson (‘25), Student Congress President.

As members of student organizations began conversing about the StuCo budget cuts it became clear that Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) received a much larger budget than others.

When asked to speak about why TKE had received a much larger budget than other organizations StuCO Treasurer Cameron O’Byran (‘26) could not share that information.

“I’m not going to speak about one specific organization’s budget nor share their budget. Our allocation process clearly outlines what we look for as we evaluate all budget requests,” said O’Byran.

Although all organizations received a small cut to their budget, a few organizations’ budgets were cut almost by 75% of what they requested for. 

“We asked for approximately $5,200 but StuCo only granted us $1,305. This budget cut has given us harder restraints in terms of recruiting and other events, making it more difficult for us to garner more members,” said Eli Mull (‘26), treasurer of Delta Gamma Tau.

“We requested $5,400 for Student Advancement association but we were only given $1,200. The majority of our budget goes into funding the senior class gift that all members of the graduating class receive at the end of the year. These gifts cost our club $4,200 last year. With our current budget we are unable to supply these gifts,” said Grace Ludema (‘26), Finance and Operations Vice President of Alpha Xi Delta.

“It was said that every organization budget was cut, but last year TKE received $11,000 from StuCo and this year they received $18,000 after they asked for $22,000. Also, the fact that the StuCo treasurer is also the President of TKE makes you think,” said Mull.

In fact, the Almanian, which is a staffed organization with paid positions received only $2,000 more than TKE. So, the new question is, “How will TKE manage to spend this generous budget?”