St. Thomas’ Undergraduate Student Government met on Sept. 14 to discuss the budget and the club funding model.

Financial budget approval

Undergraduate President Kate Kapsner and Vice President Jake Manske met with the Fall Activities Fee Committee on Sept. 13 to request USG funding. The committee splits funding between USG, STAR, Diversity Activities Board, club sports and the create[space].

“We were deciding on how much all of the different groups will be getting from the student activity fee this year, having such small junior and senior classes,” Kapsner said. “It’s affecting how much money we’re getting within our USG budget this year.”

The committee approved the $100,000 request from USG for the fall semester. Kapsner explained that USG will use $70,000 for club funding and $10,000 for club contingency.

“Our total allocation towards clubs is $70,000, which is a little over 60% of our budget,” Kapsner said. “It serves a lot of students, so that’s why it gets so much funding from USG.”

Though clubs are getting 60% percent of the budget, they will be receiving less money individually. This potentially means that USG will not fund conferences and competitions, but instead will push clubs toward more fundraising opportunities.

10% of the budget will go towards USG programming. This includes marketing for elections, club leadership dinners, giveaways, game day T-shirts and coffee vouchers. Kapsner discussed budgeting for a coffee cart, but further details are yet to be known.

15% of the budget will go towards e-board pay.

10% of the budget will go towards internal expenses like general council meetings and supplies for the USG office.

The rest of the budget will go towards funding different initiatives and committees, according to Kapsner.

The fall semester budget was approved.

Introduction to club funding model

Kapsner proposed that internal expenditure requests from clubs should go under review through the USG finance committee, and then be presented to the general council. This was a practice used in previous years.

Conferences, competitions and campus-wide events will still need to be presented to the general council for discussion and approval.

This model was approved.

Title IX revision

President Kaspner met with Julie Thornton, the Title IX coordinator at St. Thomas, on Sept. 14 to talk about creating student committees to discuss reform for the Title IX issues, as well as bias reports.

“Some federal legislation is changing surrounding guidelines, so the school has to respond accordingly,” said Kapsner.

The next USG general meeting will be from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday in Scooter’s.

Gwynnevere Vang can be reached at vang5129@stthomas.edu.