Of the several thousand dollars of fees students pay each year, a small portion is dedicated to Student Government (SG). Through two committees, SG manages the money and allocates it to student organizations.
There are two main committees in Student Government that deal with student fee money: Finance and Appropriations. While the former deals with a $24,000 budget, the appropriations committee managed $63,000 for the fall 2018 cycle and is planning its usage for $84,000 in the current semester. Both budgets can be found online.
Student Body Treasurer Molly Mueller, a fourth-year studying political science and international studies, is responsible for overseeing the entirety of SG’s finances.
“For appropriations, the Appropriations Committee makes all the decisions, and once all that happens, I go in and process the checks and make sure organizations get their money and are held accountable for spending their money how they’re supposed to,” Mueller said.
Each year, students pay a fee that is contributed toward this total, according to Mueller. This year, that fee was $7.75.
“We collect a fee,” Mueller said. “There is an amount of that that we don’t have control over, but we have, depending on student enrollment and all that, typically about $450,000 that we do control.”
Mueller said that the money out of SG’s control deals with things like adviser salaries, internet payments and suite rental in Talley.
“The money we do control covers everything from event planning and execution to Senate training sessions, and really the big thing that hits the budget is appropriating money to student organizations,” Mueller said.
The chair of the Appropriations Committee is Zeenat Nadvi, a fourth-year studying biomedical and health sciences engineering. She explained the appropriations process in detail: Essentially, organizations must register with Student Involvement, complete a set of forms along with an interview and may only request funds for specific purposes.
“To receive appropriations, you have to be eligible to do that, and that means you have to be registered with Student Involvement,” Nadvi said. “Then there’s a [W-9 IRS form].”
Nadvi said that organizations must share their receipts, or they will be placed on an ineligibility list for further funding in the interest of accountability. Afterwards, organizations must fill out appropriations forms, and there is an interview process for leaders in organizations requesting money.
She also explained that the Appropriations Committee only provides funding for specific operations, such as startup and travel costs.
“You can have it for a startup fund, so you get $300, no questions asked,” Nadvi said. “Then there’s expense requests. That’s like if there’s an event happening on campus. Then you have university representation travels, so if you’re a club on campus or you’re part of an Ultimate Frisbee competition, and you need to travel. You’re representing NC State, which is an amazing thing, so you get money for that travel.”
There is also a set of rules that deal with how much money organizations can receive, Nadvi said.
“The matching rule is the big one, which means we can only fund you as much money as you have,” Nadvi said. “So if you have $1,000, then we can fund you up to $1,000.”
Nadvi explained that there are also rules that deal with matching money received from other NC State institutional groups such as University Activities Board, maximums on gas money and restrictions on what money can be spent on.
Appropriations also holds interviews with organizations in order to gauge how much to allocate to each.
“We’ll sit with them for about 15 minutes and talk with them about what they want us to fund the most, what are they going to do with this money, how’s it going to help representation of campus and the community,” Nadvi said.
Last semester’s appropriations Senate resolution can be found here.
Additionally, any registered student organization has until Feb. 4 to request appropriations money.
