The 12th assembly of the University of Michigan’s Central Student Government (CSG) met virtually on Zoom Tuesday night to discuss an increased allocation of funds to the Student Organization Fundings Committee (SOFC), which is responsible for providing student organizations on campus with financial assistance. The additional funds are intended to address an unusually large number of applications for funding from student organizations and will be allocated primarily from the Legislative Discretionary Fund (LDF), the CSG account that funds projects and events run by the Student Assembly. This CSG meeting also unanimously confirmed the appointment of rising LSA sophomore Akhila Mullapudi as the Student of Michigan Executive Delegate.
An amendment to the Spring/Summer 2022 Budget will allocate $10,000 from the LDF and $3,000 from the General Reserve to the Student Organization Committee (SOC) for allocation to SOFC. The fund’s total will rise to approximately $18,000 once it receives the revenue from spring 2022.
According to rising LSA sophomore Mario Thaqi, a CSG representative and Vice Chair for the Finance and Executive Nominations Committees, the amendment to the Spring/Summer 2022 Budget will provide SOFC with the funds necessary to respond to the next two waves of applications from student organizations.
“From my understanding, there are still two waves left that SOFC has to consider for giving money to student organizations,” Thaqi said. “They have around $5,000 left in their account, but they’ve been allocating $7,000-$8,000 per wave, and there is an expected increase in applications for the last wave.”
The LDF will be left with approximately $3,500 after the allocation of its funds to SOFC. No additional funds to the CSG are expected until the add/drop deadline in fall 2022.
Rackham student and representative Austin Glass said the amount of money initially proposed to be allocated to SOFC, $15,000, might not leave enough money in the LDF to aid CSG during Welcome Week of the fall semester.
“It makes me a little uncomfortable to leave so little money available in the Legislative Discretionary Account for the start of the semester,” Glass said. “Obviously CSG is involved in a bunch of Welcome Week programming and activities and unforeseen circumstances will arise between now and three weeks into the start of the fall semester. And so I want to try and leave some flexibility.”
Rising LSA junior Aarushi Ganguly raised the possibility of decreasing the amount allocated to SOFC from $15,000 to $13,000. This suggestion was also supported by rising LSA sophomore Jacob Amspaugh.
“I like Aarushi’s suggestion about starting the number at 13,000 that we are lending out and then potentially, at a later date, reevaluating to see if we can give SOFC more money since, as of right now, I don’t really feel comfortable loaning out more than 13,000,” Amspaugh said.
The amendment with the updated total of $13,000 passed with unanimous consent.
Daily Staff Reporter Tina Yu can be reached at tinapyyu@umich.edu.