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Possible budget bill blowback
The budget bill proposed by the ASRC could result in significant cuts to some A&S Fee-funded departments. stories are a part of a continuing series Center for Student thatThese touches on the effects certain departments will Marshall Student face as a result of the proposed budget bill that will Center Involvement cut 15 percent overall to programming. n
By Maria Ranoni N E W S
E D I T O R
Among the ubiquitous departmental budgets cuts that were proposed in the Activity and Service Fee Recommendation Committee (ASRC) annual budget bill stands the Center for Student Involvement (CSI), the department with the largest slash in funds. In total, CSI will lose $300,055 from its budget, the largest chunk coming from its programming budget specifically. CSI is responsible for putting on events such as University Lecture Series (ULS), Bulls Nite Out, Homecoming, USF Week and Bullstock. Aladdin Hiba, chair of ASRC, said CSI was cut so much due to its large budget and a failure to appropriately spend their budgets in the past. “The narrative that departments could do more with the budgets that they have has been a narrative that’s been around a little bit in ASRC,” Hiba said. “CSI has been kind of the poster child of the narrative. CSI’s programming budget, compared to the other departments, is tremendously enormous.” According to Hiba, CSI’s total budget went from
By Jesse Stokes $2,080,782 in 2017-18 to M A N A G I N G E D I T O R $1,780727 in 2018-19, which is a cut of 14.42 percent. In light of an Its programming budget Activity and Service specifically went from Fee Recommendation $1,238,728 in 2017-18 to Committee (ASRC) $955,773, which is a 23.17 annual budget bill percent cut. already passed by While Hiba and Monica the Senate, many of Miranda, director of CSI, the Student Affairs agree on the total amount departments, such as the CSI is being cut, they Marshall Student Center disagree on the percentage. (MSC) are currently “CSI had an initial cut left to rearrange their during the first round of department spending. general budget review and As the bill awaits decision making and that, approval from Student plus this secondary cut, Body President Moneer is a total of 26 percent,” Kheireddine and Miranda said. USF Vice President The programming of Student Affairs and budget of CSI is what Student Success Paul allows the department Dosal, such departments to host the events that are left working to see Miranda said are indicative what can be done next. of the college experience In the proposed bill, at USF. the overall percentage “The staff team will have cut to the MSC would to huddle up to see which equate to approximately programs that it is going four percent, however, to impact,” Miranda said. specific portions of their “That will be anything budget — student payroll from homecoming to Patio and contractual service, Tuesday, Movies on the which is responsible Lawn, USF Week, Mr. and for programming Miss. USF (and) summer put on by the MSC programs. It is about us — will receive a more needing to come together significant reduction. as a staff and figure what “The total budget is going to be best for the that we requested … was students.” Last Tuesday, Senate passed the Activity and Service One of CSI’s most Recommendation Committee’s annual budget bill that included $2,976,473, and we are slated to receive 2,871,982, popular programs, ULS across the board cuts to departments. ORACLE PHOTO/CHAVELI which is approximately n See CSI on PAGE 3 GUZMAN four percent less when
you look at all four lines that we requested,” Chemburkar said. “So, it was a 15 percent for programming that was cut and 15 percent for student payroll… which is a total of a four percent reduction across our whole budget.” According to Chemburkar, $122,000 was requested from Activity and Service Fee allocations for contractual services, and the MSC received $104,125 of their requested dollars. On the same token, $535,675 was requested for student payroll dollars and $454,474 of that request was allocated. What this means for operations of the MSC, according to Chemburkar, would be a loss of both operation hours and hours available for student employees. “What we would have to do is try and find where in the building we could eliminate 27 student employment hours per day, so that would be through an elimination of services such as Bull Market or Student Center programming or hours of operations,” Chemburkar said. “We
n See MSC on PAGE 3