By Taylor Nigrelli
Opinion Editor
Wide-ranging budget cuts for the 2014-15 school year have taken a financial toll on St. Bonaventure clubs and programs.
According to the Student Government Association (SGA) Executive Board President Alex Noguerola, these cuts stem from a decline in enrollment. Exact enrollment numbers for the 2014-15 school year are not available yet.
“There were a lot of reductions in budget this year due to low enrollment,” Noguerola said. “Enrollment issues have really killed our ability to have a solid and high budget. We’re graduating big classes and bringing in classes that aren’t as big.”
The funding for clubs comes from the $965 university fee each student pays. All of that money is used towards student services in some way. A large percentage of it goes to SGA, who allocates a certain amount to each club.
Campus Activities Board (CAB), Intramural/Club sports, The Bona Venture and WSBU-FM, 88.3 The Buzz are considered the “big four” clubs, which allows them to take on most of the funding.
Each saw its budget slashed significantly from last year. CAB’s allocation fell from $61,000 to $21,609, WSBU-FM’s from $13,283 to $4,698, The Bona Venture’s from $11,954 to $4,228 and Intramurals from $13,283 to $4,698.
“The ‘big four’ all get different percentages,” Noguerola said. “The less money there is in the general pool, the less money each club gets. Because fewer students pay into that, we have less money to give out.”
The above numbers do not necessarily represent the total amount of money each club has to spend this year. Some clubs already have money in their respective accounts, saved from past SGA allotments.
According to SGA’s records, CAB has $8,978 in its account, The Bona Venture has $2000 and Intramurals has $12,143.
In addition to those funds, the “big four” clubs will receive extra funding stemming from cutting the readership program. According to SGA, this should open up about $18,000 to split between the clubs.
Additionally, the SGA has a $20,000 programming budget which mostly goes to clubs who request grants. Clubs fall into three categories – social, academic or culture. Social clubs can request grants up to $250, culture clubs $500 and academic clubs $1,000.
Because of the tighter budget, SGA will have to be more careful when deciding how much money to allocate to individual clubs, Noguerola said.
“What we did this year is we looked at budgets they had last year, we compared it to this year, how much they spend last year, how much they already have in their account,” Noguerola said. “Because some clubs just accumulate all these funds.”
The “big four” clubs are generally allocated more money because they need extra funds to remain active. For example, CAB is charged with putting on events every weekend. President Cody Didas knows the club will have to be more selective in how it spends its money this year.
“The main thing is just to do cost-effective events,” Didas said. “In the past, maybe we can bring a comedian who’s $2,500 or so. When 30 people show up, that looks pretty bad. We’re trying to just save money where we can. Instead of a $2,500 comedian, it’ll be a $1,000 comedian.”
CAB generally funds both family weekend and spring weekend events. Because of the severity of the funding cuts, the organization was forced to make some reductions for family weekend. CAB generally provides inflatables for “Bonagany” during family weekend. That will not occur this year.
Didas said cuts for Spring Weekend are unlikely as there are too many fixed costs involved with putting the event on. To help fund it, Didas has discussed fundraising with SGA.
“Last year we spent about $10,000 on Spring Weekend. $7,000 of that is fixed costs,” Didas said. “It’s going to be there no matter what. We buy things like the tent for the food and pay for the extra security. We’re going to keep it at that level this year.”
Rob DeFazio, director of club and intramural sports, said he’ll also be more careful about spending money this year, but has a comfortable enough account cushion to run his programs similarly to how they’ve been run in the past.
However, if the funding for the big four does not increase next year, he knows changes will have to be made.
“We just have to be cognizant of what we do,” DeFazio said. “This year, with intramural and club sports, we were able to carry money over. That’s the nice thing with all the clubs and organizations – they all carry the money over. This year, I’m confident we can run things the way we have in the past. Next year, if it stays the same way, I don’t think we’ll be able to continue to do what we’re doing.”
With less SGA allotment money, clubs will have to dig into saved money to stay afloat this year. To avoid the changes DeFazio mentioned, clubs will need a larger allotment next year. The only way for this to happen is for enrollment to increase in the next year.
“The problem we always have is, how do you want us to put on more events to recruit students with less money?” Noguerola said. “This will be the year that tests those boundaries.”
