UGBC Proposes 2023–24 Budget at SA Meeting

By Will MarTino Asst. News Editor

The Student Assembly (SA) voted to pass a $377,500 UGBC budget for the 2023–24 academic year during its meeting on Tuesday night, increasing last year’s budget by $15,050.

Jonah Kotzen, UGBC president-elect and MCAS ’24; Meghan Heckelman, UGBC vice president–elect and LSEHD ’25; and Sahithi Thumuluri, GLBTQ+ Leadership Council (GLC) financial coordinator and MCAS ’25, presented the budget to the SA at the meeting.

All present SA representatives voted to pass the proposed budget except for Community Relations Chair Joshua Golden, MCAS ’25, and Student Life Committee Chair Thompson Penn, CSOM ’25, who each abstained. Heckelman said she, Kotzen, and Thumuluri needed the SA’s approval for the budget before presenting it to Jonathan Hinrichs—director of finance and operations in the Division of Student Affairs—next week.

The budget is broken down into the eight divisions of UGBC: Executive Council, Communications, Student Initiatives, SA, Environmental Sustainability, the AHANA+ Leadership Council (ALC), GLC, and the Council for

Students with Disabilities (CSD).

Executive Council — $78,300

($22,550 increase)

UGBC’s Executive Council saw the largest increase for the coming year’s proposed budget, with a 40.45 percent growth from its allotted amount for the 2022–23 academic year. The most costly line items in the budget are the Office of Student Involvement graduate stipend ($23,250), the UGBC leadership stipend ($10,000), as well as Dinner and Dialogue events and the President’s Roundtable Conference ($6,000 each).

“Part of the reason you see the increase from last year to this year for Exec. Council is there are line items that we hadn’t included in previous years that we had contributed to that we have now made into line items,” Thumuluri said.

“An example of that is Marathon Monday as well as the end-of-year banquet.”

Heckelman added that another reason for the increase in the Executive Council’s budget was that Dinner and Dialogue events and the President’s Roundtable Conference were formally a part of the Student Initiatives budget.

The Executive Council’s budget also includes a $4,000 stipend for the UGBC president, a $3,500 sti- pend for the UGBC vice president, and $9,500 of discretionary funds.

Communications — $6,150 ($1,000 decrease)

The proposed budget for UGBC’s Division of Communications will decrease by 13.99 percent for the 2023–24 year.

The budget includes $2,000 for flyers and posters, $2,000 for outreach merchandise, and $2,000 for UGBC merchandise.

The decrease from last year’s budget stems from UGBC’s re - duced use of flyers, according to Kotzen.

“We have noticed that a lot of our marketing—just by nature of technologies—moved digital, and so we kind of wanted to reflect that in the budget,” Thumuluri said.

Golden suggested that UGBC consider removing funds from the merchandise allocation, instead distributing them elsewhere in the budget.

Heckelman responded that while she understands Golden’s hesitations to support financing merchandise for UGBC’s members, she thinks the merchandise makes UGBC’s presence on campus and at events more visible and significant.

“I think that having that physical presence that people can see for the relatively small expense of $2,000 that you see as opposed to the broader budget is important,” she said.