An increased student activities fee has boosted the Undergraduate Student Government budget for fall semester amid $43,000 in rollover funds.

USG was allocated $318,000 for the semester, an increase of $14,000 from the previous semester.

The student activities fee, a charge students pay in addition to their tuition, was raised by $10 this year from the 2016-17 school year bringing it to $272. The money collected from student activities fees fully funds USG, St. Thomas Activities and Recreation, and the Diversity Activities Board.

This year, Student Affairs allocated 40 percent of its budget to USG, 40 percent to STAR, and 20 percent to the Diversity Activities Board, a new branch of Student Affairs. Previously, STAR had received 60 percent of the Student Affairs allocation in past years.

Chris Meader, vice president of financial affairs for USG, said the senate has not yet completely determined how to spend the $43,000 in rollover funds, but some of the money will go toward sponsoring students’ trips to the Overcoming Racism Conference at the end of October.

Margaret Cahill, director of Campus Life and USG adviser, explained that the rollover money allows USG to fund this conference without it affecting the regular budget.

USG is “still exploring ways” to use the rest of surplus funds, Cahill said.

“Since it’s sort of a compilation of the last couple years, they are going to use it as opportunities come up for student that might be outside the normal budgeting process,” Cahill said, adding that USG members will look into “different things to support student initiatives.”

In the spring, because many clubs had already been up and running for a semester, fewer asked for funds, resulting in the $43,000 rollover.

“Part of the surplus is that we didn’t have as many clubs asking for funds in the spring as we normally have, and so that’s great; clubs are getting into the practice of using the money in the year that they get it,” Cahill said.

A fund, designed to provide money to clubs and organizations for conferences and competitions, gets $20,000 added to it each semester, but this semester Meader noticed that the fund was nearly overflowing with unused money. For this reason, USG decided to not accept this semester’s $20,000 allowance.

That allowance is normally taken off the top of the Student Affairs budget before money is allocated to USG, STAR and DAB. Meader said the amount of money stockpiled in that account is so large that they would be able to finance conferences and competitions for two semesters before needing to add more.

“That amount hasn’t always been used, and there’s been that continuous deposit of 20,000, so it’s just been steadily growing. So we don’t need to put any more money in there. So we can actually draw for the entire year and fund everybody without having to add to it,” Meader said.

“We’re just trying to get the amount back in check,” Meader said. “It’s funded by student activity fees; we want to use them in the year that we get them.”

USG put 74 percent of its budget toward funding clubs and organizations, or $235,000. Meader said this percentage stayed about the same from last semester. The class councils were allocated $16,000, or 5 percent, of the total USG budget.

USG put $17,500 toward committees and initiatives and $15,600 toward programming. Internal expenses and reserve funds accounted for $40,460 or 11 percent, of the budget.

According to Meader, these numbers add up to more than $318,000 because some of the rollover money has been included in the values.

Meader said USG members have considered buying a coffee cart with the internal expense money and going around campus to sell cookies and coffee to promote USG.

“What we needed to do was put together a budget that is reasonable and maintainable for the future,” Meader said of the overall USG budget.

Sophie Carson can be reached at sophia.carson@stthomas.edu.