The Senate Appropriations Commission is changing the way it funds student groups through its Campus Outreach Committee.
More Ohio University student organizations have received money in recent years thanks to new methods used by Student Senate's appropriations commission.
The Senate Appropriations Commission, also known as SAC, is a funding branch of senate responsible for allocating money to OU student organizations. On top of managing applications for funding, it also gives out money in both large and small amounts depending on the organization or event.
SAC commissioner Charlotte Klimovich said one reason why more student groups have received funding this year is due to recent efforts by the Campus Outreach Committee. The committee is a part of SAC and is in charge of its public relations so more students are aware of the money available to them.
“(The Campus Outreach Committee) is one thing that I am most proud of for this year,” Klimovich said, adding that though the committee has existed in the past, its membership has grown this year.
Dane Hudson, a member of the Campus Outreach Committee, said he has seen the group expand its role since first semester.
The committee has reached out to student organizations by hosting sessions teaching students how to apply for SAC funding and advertising SAC on the monitors in Baker Center, Hudson said. Committee members also attended training meetings for OrgSync, a website student groups use for organizational purposes.
He also added that the committee will soon start to publish a SAC newsletter detailing events SAC is funding and how student groups can apply for money.
More student organizations are also receiving money due to a change in SAC's strategy in allocating its yearly budget. SAC has a yearly budget of $400,000 that is drawn from OU students' general fee, according to a previous Post report. Full-time students under OU's fixed tuition plan currently pay $1,320 per academic year toward the general fee, while upperclassmen not on the fixed plan pay $1,256 per academic year.
The Post received SAC funding for an event in Fall Semester.
In previous years, SAC gave $100,000 to each of its larger student organizations, which are the University Program Council, International Student Union and Black Student Cultural Programming Board, Klimovich said.
“(Giving them $100,000 each) obviously ate up a lot of our budget and we could do less on rolling funding and spot funding,” Klimovich added.
Now, SAC only gives the large organizations $80,000 each annually which frees up money for spot and rolling funding, which is funding in smaller amounts, she said.
“I would probably say within the past two years we’ve given out a little bit more in these smaller amounts to just a greater number of organizations,” Klimovich said.
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Shem Krey, sales and fundraising director for the All Campus Radio Network, or ACRN, applies for funding for the station's annual music festival, Lobsterfest.
“We wouldn’t be able to do the event on the same level as we do it right now,” Krey, a junior studying marketing, said. “Lobsterfest, for us, is a big deal and for the Athens community it’s a big deal.”
He added the radio station normally has a good experience applying for SAC funding, though they previously had an issue when SAC gave out too much money one year, which caused the commission to lower the amount ACRN received the following year.
Klimovich said that in the past SAC was not great about budgeting.
“Sometimes we would either spend more money than we had, which would really suck ... We’d go into debt or we wouldn't get rid of all of it,” she said. “That has not been the case, like, the past couple of years. We’ve gotten it down to, like, $1,000 basically, which is pretty good. You don’t want to overspend.”
Krey added that without SAC funding, ACRN would have to fundraise for Lobsterfest.
“I hope they keep doing what they are doing because they are doing it well,” he added.
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