Oswego State Student Association receives about $1.8 million in installments from the student activity fee each year, and the senate determines how much funding each organization gets.

After budgets are given to organizations and clubs, there is a remaining portion for the contingency budget, which is money set aside for organizations should there be an emergency. This amount totals $20,000 for the fall and spring semesters. The current amount left in this budget as of Tuesday is $12,830.

“My freshman year, we had, for the whole year, $7,000 as the contingency fund, and we stretched that out for the whole year,” said Dalton Bisson, Student Association president. “I think they’ll be all right, and our finance committee has been very competent and has been able to strike up fair bills that are fair to both the club and the contingency fund.”

Due to a significant mistake in the budget last year, Student Association Programming Board, a subset of Student Association, needed to ask for an additional $12,000 to pay for expenses of the day activities during OzFest this coming May.

During the weekly Student Association meeting Tuesday, Feb. 6, Director of SAPB Cindy Pietrkowski presented the need for $12,000 for day activities during the annual OzFest. The request included $1,750 for a Ferris wheel and $8,000 for inflatables and other novelties.

“Losing all of our funding for the day activities has been really hard on our board to try to plan around that, especially because our board has also taken a lot of budget cuts,” Pietrkowski said. “We’ve been spreading our budget thin throughout the semester because we are not just the ‘OzFest’ board; We are the programming board.”

According to Miranda Kryskow, the SA finance director, the budget council will not be granting the full amount, but rather $6,000. According to Bisson, the budget council will likely cut that amount, but it is able to provide some additional funds from leftover accounts.

At the end of spring 2017, the budget council decided to consolidate the regular $10,000 SAPB normally uses for day activities to the rest of the board’s OzFest budget of $190,000 to make an even $200,000 for convenience purposes.

The $190,000 that SAPB uses for the concert is still available, but the funding for the other activities that OzFest features is unconfirmed at the moment.

“I can assume the former director of finance took the $200,000 and said, ‘Oh, they were fine with $190,000 last year, let’s move that $10,000 out,’ forgetting that we combined those two accounts,” Bisson said. “We did this to them [SAPB.]”

However, Bisson said, the former director of finance, Matthew Peters, mistakenly took away the $10,000 from the account and disbursed it to other organizations while trying to “plug up holes” and did not let anyone know.

“I think there was an active avoidance of communication. The former DOF was graduating and getting out the door,” Bisson said.

Additionally, Peters planned for a $2 increase in the student activities fee while budgeting, but he did not tell Kryskow, who succeeded him for the 2017-2018 academic year. There was a $1 increase in the fee, which threw off the budget.

“Matt, the finance director before me, wanted a $2 increase to the budget, but he didn’t tell me that. So when I submitted my bill for the budget increase, I did it for a $1 increase, as was suggested,” Kryskow said. “Matt made the budget with the thought that we would have $2 extra per person, and that didn’t happen.”

To ensure this mistake does not happen again, Bisson said he and Kryskow are working to make the finances of SA more transparent and will keep records for longer. Most records are typically thrown out after three or four years. Kryskow is also preparing transition documents to help the next director of finance.

To request budgeting information, the director of finance is open for emails, at mkryskow@oswego.edu.

Rachel Futterman | The Oswegonian