by Heather R. Gabel
ASUNM Vice President
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome everyone back from a nice, long winter vacation. I hope that you took advantage of the extra time and got plenty of rest to make up for the long nights of studying ahead of you.
Here at ASUNM we are planning ways to make this a productive semester and hope that we will be able to make great strides for the students of UNM.
Tonight (Jan. 27), the Student Fee Review Board will be sponsoring a Town Hall Meeting at 6 p.m. in Dane Smith Hall, Room 229. The board, made up of four undergraduate students and three graduate students, is the committee that makes recommendations to the Office of the President in regard to the allocation of the Student Activity Fee. This fee is $295.70 annually per student (around $5.5 million total). So if you would like a say in where your $295.70 is going to be allocated please let your voice be heard at this forum.
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Wednesday, Jan. 29, we hope to see you at the UNM Bookstore for our first outreach event. We will be outside from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and accompanied by a band at noon. There will be music, laughs, fun and information. You will also be able to find out how to purchase Scorpion hockey tickets at a discount price of $7 for the ASUNM-sponsored UNM Night at the Scorpions Game, which will be held on Jan. 31st!
It is once again time for the officers of chartered student organizations on campus to prepare their budget requests for the 2003 fiscal year which runs from July 1 through June 30. It is during the ASUNM spring budget process that ASUNM allocates the largest amount of funds to student organizations.
The ASUNM spring budget process is limited to funding general operating expenses for organizations during the upcoming fiscal year. To participate in the spring budget process your organization will need to attend a mandatory budget workshop that is put on by the ASUNM Finance Committee. These workshops are being held on Tuesday, Jan. 28, at 2 p.m., in Dane Smith Hall, Room 125; Thursday, Jan. 30, at 9 a.m., in Dane Smith Hall, Room 120; Monday, Feb. 3, at 4 p.m., in Dane Smith Hall, Room 125; and Friday, Feb. 7, at 9 a.m., in Woodward Hall, Room 147.
During these workshops, you will receive the spring budget packet and instructions on how to complete the appropriate forms as well as how the budget process will work.
After the budget workshop your organization will need to decide what funding to request. There are helpful instructions in the packet and you can contact an ASUNM senator at 277-5528 with any questions that may arise. All completed budget Request forms are due to the ASUNM office by 5 p.m., on Friday, Feb. 14. Once all the forms are received, the ASUNM Finance Committee will assign your organization a time to appear before the committee during one of the mandatory budget hearings held on Saturday, Feb. 22, March 1 and 8, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., in Mitchell Hall, Room 104. If we receive budget requests from an amount of groups that exceed the time allocated on those dates hearings may also be held on Sunday, Feb. 23, and March 2 and 9. The times of each organizations budget hearing will be posted outside the ASUNM Office in the Student Services Center, Room 262, by noon on Wednesday, Feb. 19, so remember to come see when your hearing is scheduled.
During your budget hearings, be ready to speak about your organization and why you are requesting funding. Due to the large amounts requested and the limited amount of funds available, budget requests are rarely completely funded. There are numerous student organizations that will request funding and we have a limited amount of money to distribute between these organizations, but know that the ASUNM Finance Committee will do its best to make sure each organization is given a fair share of the pie.
The ASUNM Finance Committee then balances the budget and presents the final budget to the ASUNM Senate on Wednesday, April 9, at 6 p.m. in the Kiva Lecture Hall. The budget will be discussed at the senate meeting and will be passed as presented, or may be changed by the senate and then passed.
Once the ASUNM legislative branch has passed the budget, it is sent over to the ASUNM executive branch to be signed or vetoed by the ASUNM president. If signed by the president, it is sent to the Student Government Accounting Office, where your funds are made available to your organization at the beginning of the next fiscal year, which would be in July 2003.
Jennifer Onuska and I look forward to another semester as your ASUNM president and vice president and hope to see you at some of our events in the near future.
Good luck this semester!
