Club sports teams have a new fund they can use in the event they make it to a championship level, due to a new budgeting system put in place last year.
Last year, Student Association allotted $10,000 for their contingency fund. This fund serves as almost “extra funds,” in the event that an on-campus organization may need additional funding during the year. In order for an organization to ask for and receive more money, they need to have representatives present what they want and why in front of the senate at a Student Association meeting. Two senators then write a bill for the organization, and senators later vote on whether or not the club will receive the money they asked for.
This year, due in part to the work of Director of Campus Life Dan Roberts and the 2018 – 2019 Director of Finance Miranda Kryskow, this year’s contingency budget has seen a vast change. This year, there is $20,000 in the contingency fund, and a separate $20,000 for club sports, in the event they make it to the championship level of their season. The way the sports budget has been decided in the past was completely revamped, and last year’s Equal Pay for Equal Play movement had a hand in encouraging the change.
“What that really did unveil was that there wasn’t just a large funding discrepancies in overall budget, but price per participant, which is what Title IX kind of really looks at when they look at equity across sports funding and things like that, was way out of whack, too,” said Roberts. “SA agreed that the administrative function of the club sports budget process needed to be contracted with and passed off to an administrative entity like Campus Life.”
According to Roberts, that is a common trend among other universities across the United States. When researching and surveying around 50 other colleges to decide what method to implement during budget planning, almost every other school has their student government allot funds created by the student activity fee to campus sports and organizations, but then contract with an administrative office, such as Campus Life or Campus Recreation, to supervise the disbursement of the rest of the funds.
Starting in January of last year, Kryskow and the club sports graduate assistant held workshops with the club sports teams about the new budget process, which included submitting an online form. The form allowed teams to rank their priorities in their budget, between sections including transportation, league dues and equipment. Then, a larger committee looked over the budget proposal, and made sure any discrepancies were “documented and justified,” according to Roberts. Teams could then consult and discuss their budget proposals, and then resubmit their proposal, which was finalized.
“I’m happy to say that, because of the one-on-one time we put in through this new process with the club teams, and their acceptance of the new process, we were able to come in way under the original budgetary allotment, which was fantastic,” Roberts said.
Since club sports teams had multiple chances to propose their budget and specify their priorities, the idea was that they would no longer need to appeal to SA to get additional funding from the contingency budget. However, the bylaws still state that it is possible for these organizations to ask for additional funding.
In past Student Association budget plans, some years struggled with what Roberts called “legacy funding,” which resulted in discrepancies in funding. Certain years, according to Roberts, administrations were not fully verifying the amounts of money spent by organizations, like equipment, a one-year only cost. If an organization buys equipment, said Roberts, they are not going to need to buy new equipment every single year. However, some organizations were getting those funds annually, falling into this “legacy funding.” Another example of the old method, according to Roberts, would be providing all teams postseason funds when the reality is, not every team will make it into championships. Roberts said, by looking more carefully through the budgets and evaluating what was actually needed, SA had more funds to give, providing them with this $20,000 championship fund for the teams that need it.
“The goal of the budget process was to give [club sports], as best as we could, what they needed to be competitive and have that postseason fund to support them if and when they hopefully make postseason play,” Roberts said.
The current SA director of finance, Ryan Green, is pleased with the budget for this school year. He had no hand in planning it, but will be planning the budget for next year.
“I’m really confident in this budget to take care of most people’s needs. President Stanley said it was one of the best budgets she’s seen in a while, so props to Miranda and the budget council,” Green said.
Graphic by Patarick Higgins | The Oswegonian
