2024-2025 Graduate Bulletin

Section 8–The Budgetary Process

  1. At a time no later than the Student Council’s regular October and February meetings, it shall receive and consider recommendations from the Committee on the Budget on general budgetary guidelines based on anticipated revenues and projected expenditures. These shall include maximum allocations for the general categories of spending within the jurisdictions of the various spending categories. It may also include more specific ceilings for expenditure on particular programs or activities such as allocations for individual clubs. The Committee on the Budget may also recommend the establishment of reserve or contingency funds to be allocated later during the term of the Student Council among the various spending categories.
The Student Council must act on these recommendations before the end of October or February, as the case may be. Thereafter, the Committee on the Budget, through the treasurer, shall monitor the actual flow of funds collected, appropriated, and expended by the Student Council, submitting a monthly report to the Student Council on the same.

Within the overall guidelines adopted by the Committee on Clubs, the Committee on the Budget shall have direct responsibility for appropriating funds for the deferral of the legitimate expenses of the Student Council and its members. The treasurer shall be responsible for promptly distributing copies of the budgetary guidelines to all members of the Student Council and other interested parties, and shall similarly make available a monthly list of all Student Council revenues, appropriations, obligations and expenditures. The secretary shall be responsible for publicizing these reports.
  1. The Student Activities Association Board of Directors may establish minimums for expenditures on any activity or organization. Such minimums are automatically to be considered an appropriated portion of the Student Government’s budget, and may be obligated and expended according to such procedures as the Board of Directors may authorize. When minima are established, the Board of Directors must promptly inform the Student Council of the same, specifying the levels and purposes of the funding involved.
The Student Council may appropriate funds for any purpose beyond the levels provided for in the minima.
  1. Until the guidelines have been approved, no funds shall be appropriated by the Student Council for any purpose. After the approval of the guidelines, each committee or member of the Student Council will have the responsibility for recommending to the Student Council the specific amount of funds to be appropriated for programs and activities in its area of jurisdiction. All resolutions providing the appropriation of funds must originate in the proper committee or in a proposal with supporting documentation.
  2. No resolution for appropriating funds which exceed the ceilings for club activities or for any other category of spending, established by the chair of the Committee on the Budget, shall be approved unless it receives an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the qualified members of the Student Council present and voting; nor may any amendment be added by the Student Council to any resolution for the appropriation of funds reported by any committee which acts to increase the amount of the appropriations contained therein. Amendments may be offered in Student Council, however, which decrease this amount, subject to the specifications of the agenda.
  3. The treasurer shall be responsible for disbursing appropriated Student Council funds, provided that no contracts shall be entered into by the Student Council without the written authorization of either the Vice President of Student Affairs or the Dean of Students.
  4. No monies may be disbursed by the treasurer until two full weeks have passed following their appropriation by the Student Council, provided that this requirement may be waived if the budget is approved by the Student Activities Association Board of Directors. During this two-week period the Student Council, if in session, may reconsider any such appropriation.