Over the past year, Student Senate has been working to find a maintainable way to manage the money given to Wittenberg via students’ Student Activity fees to have a greater impact on students while they are attending Wittenberg.
Student Senate President Zach Lough, ’17, and Student Senate Treasurer Katie Karman, ’17, held open forums to discuss a proposed reallocation of Student Activity funds over the past couple of months.
The proposed plan, which passed on Jan. 17, featured a new method of reallocating funds in the form of percentages. The current percentage allocation amounts will be reevaluated each year to fit the needs of Wittenberg students currently enrolled, the main reason as to this proposal.
The proposal outlines percentages of the Student Activity Fee that will go towards Student Organizations (19 percent), Club Sports (12 percent), Union Board (38.5 percent), Student Senate (6 percent), Tiger Fund (10 percent), BABW (4 percent), Class Allocations (2 percent), New York Times (4 percent) and Recreation & Well-Being (4.5 percent).
To get these percentages, Harman compiled a list of all the spending habits of Senate within the past three freshman classes. From these numbers, Harman determined the percentages, which turned into a loose basis for the hard percentages presented on the proposal.
In the past, Student Senate did not spend students’ Student Activity Fee money right away, often mismanaging funds that rolled into a big lump sum as the years passed on. These hard percentages will help to ensure that the money students are paying now will be used for things that will benefit them during their time here at Wittenberg.
“[By putting] those percentages into our budget… we would be spending 100 percent of our budget,” Lough said.
A new expenditure for the proposal is the Recreation & Well-Being aspect of the budget, which was brought to Student Senate last year by Director of Athletics Gary Williams. This part of the funds will help benefit the GetFit Witt program and will possibly help to maintain the use of fitness equipment in the HPER Center.
As previously mentioned, the funds will be reallocated each year to ensure the most benefit out of students’ Student Activity Fee. Williams will also have to return to Senate every year to make the case for maintaining the Recreation & Well-Being aspect of the budget.
Lough shared excitement over Williams’ proposal to get students more active with the fitness offerings that Wittenberg provides for students.
“We’re trying to find new ways to engage students in the recreation and well-being aspects of Student Senate,” Lough said.
In the end, this reallocation will not affect any one club or one student more so than the other. This reallocation will simply be a more sustainable way for students to reap the benefits of the money they pay every year.
Any further questions about the recently passed reallocation of funds can be directed towards Lough at loughz@wittenberg.edu.
