The financial fate of campus student groups was decided on April 20, when the Student Assembly ratified the 2009-10 budget, leaving two groups without a budget and the rest seeing no significant changes from the 2008-09 financial plan.

Around 180 student groups registered under the Student Association at Binghamton University for the 2008-09 school year were each allotted a portion of the approximately $700,000. Next year that total is set to approximately $800,000, but with the increase of the number of student groups to around 200, the actual budget did not change, a rare occurrence according to Alice Liou, SA vice president for finance.

Each student group is designated a presentation time to request funding from the financial council before the budget is written, and a date of appeal if they are not happy with the budget results.

“Student groups that lost out on money were ones that didn’t show up to appeals and presentation times after individual reminder e-mails were sent out,” Liou said. “Possibly the treasurers didn’t tell their presidents when the dates were. I don’t know what happened, but they did not show.”

Both the Experimental Media Organization and the American Marketing Association did not receive a budget for next year because they did not attend their presentation and appeal times.

“Our treasurer missed the first budget hearing where you plead your case for next year’s fund,” Sarah Schwartz, president of the American Marketing Association, said. “We were told that nothing could be done until next year. We will have to go to the SA each time we need money. This is a huge issue because we usually get a lot of money.”

Due to an unfortunate series of events, EMO was also unable to attend their presentation meetings this semester.

“I had to go to the SA budget hearing and basically ask if we could get our budget back,” Basheer Bergus, treasurer of the Experimental Media Organization, said. “In the end I am happy that the SA decided to accept the budget as is. Usually the SA strips important organizations out of the budget throughout the meeting, but because the budget was accepted in full without EMO given a budget, other groups could continue to have funding.”

EMO plans to hold fundraising events next semester to raise the $600 that has been budgeted to the organization in the past.

“The loss of $600 is nothing to dismiss, but it is still pretty insignificant compared to what is needed,” Bergus said.

In addition to the two groups whose budgets were dropped, around 20 student groups came back for the appeal, including Hillel-Jewish Student Union and the Society of Automotive and Aerospace Engineers.

“Hillel was initially allocated $20,300 for next year, the same amount that we were allocated this year,” Rebecca Cohen, Hillel-JSU treasurer, said. “Every year we try to increase the budget to increase the quality of the organization. The SA was not very clear about the appeal process, but we were given a short amount of time to make a case for why the group needs and deserves more money. I went line by line and figure by figure, essentially showing that our plans would cost around $90,000 for the next year.”

Hillel was able to increase their allocation to $23,000 for next year, a 13 percent increase from this year.

“We are happy we got an increase; a lot of groups did not get an increase at all,” Cohen said. “We obviously would have liked more money, but everyone does. I thought it was a success for Hillel budget-wise. This year we actually got a greater percentage increase than in recent years as well.”

At the Assembly meeting last week, each of the 40 members was assigned a number at random to determine speaking order. SA President Matt Landau was No. 1 and made a motion to pass the budget as a whole.

The budget was passed in two debate cycles, the first of which ended in a 16-16 tie that was broken by Student Assembly Chair Josh Berk, who voted to not pass the budget. This brought about a second debate cycle, which called to reconsider the motion, and where the budget passed in a 20-11 vote.

“This was the Assembly’s most important, and shortest, meeting,” Liou said.