Collegiate Times

This semester, students are paying $148.50 for a student activity fee listed on their bi-annual tuition bills. From the collective sum of this fee, the two student budget boards responsible for allocating money received $870,000 for the '07-'08 academic year to distribute among theuniversity's student organizations.

The Budget Board exists to dispense the student fee money in order for student organizations to contribute to the quality of campus life through special events and programs.

The Board consists of two separate branches: the Registered Student Organization Budget Board and the Student Budget Board.

According to Steve Burrell, assistant director of student organizations and the chair of the RSO Budget Board, VTU and BSA are the two organizations whose primary responsibility is to provide programming for the campus throughout the year.

With $437,055 combined, VTU and BSA are allotted more than half of that total amount taken from student fees.

"VTU and BSA are solely responsible and charged by the university to provide entertainment and educational programs for the campus," said Monica Hunter, associate director of campus programs and chair of the SBB. "This mostly means national artists, and this type of performer and these types of events are expensive."

VTU received $101,280 for concerts alone, and received a total of $300,017 for the year. BSA received $137,038.

"Our allocation process at Tech is pretty sound," Hunter said. "For the most part, I think we have a very fair system."

When looking at the budgetary amounts categorically, Burrell said that the contract/performer fees category is the most expensive. This year, $478,476 was allotted to student organizations for such fees. This amount covers expenses for creating a contract for performers to come to the university. Not included are performer lodging, meals, and airfare fees.

Also not included in the grand total of Budgets revolve around board funds given to the organizations is the revenue collected at each event itself; that is, the fee that students, staff, faculty and community members pay to attend.

Organizations like VTU use these funds to pay for things that the Budget Board will not pay for such as give-away prizes at events, fruit trays and certain special requests that performers want in their rooms before an event.

Hannah Delp, junior biology major, is the president of the Scuba Club, a fairly new organization.

"As a smaller organization, we don't have a huge membership and don't have much money coming in like some larger groups do," she said. "It would be nice to get some help ... Since I'm paying, I'd sort of like to see it come back to me in one of the clubs I'm in," she said.

The Skydiving Club, another small organization, expressed similar sentiments.

"I think we're pretty fairly funded," said Jamie Sides, senior civil engineering major and president of the Skydiving Club, which received $8,635 of the $17,096 requested for this year. "But I would like to see some of the smaller clubs get a bit more funding."

He said it's difficult trying to take a club of 12 people across the nation for competitions on the funds they've received.

"The cost of doing programming over the past several years has dramatically increased, but our allotment has not necessarily kept up with that," Burrell said. "We've had difficulty with trying to keep up with the demand of what it costs to do things."