After a meeting that lasted over nine hours last Monday night, the Student Association passed its 2006-2007 budget, which allocates funds to over 150 Binghamton University student groups.

The SA budget, totaling roughly $2 million, is derived from the $84.50 mandatory student activity fee included in tuition. The budget funds all SA-chartered student groups, as well as student-oriented programs, such as Club Sports and the OCCT blue buses.

The budget is drawn up by the SA financial council, and then taken to the general assembly, where each representative is given a chance to propose one change in a randomly-drawn order. Each change is voted on individually. The budget, as a whole, must be ratified by a majority vote in the assembly before it can be passed on to BU’s administration for ultimate approval.

Though there are a few major changes from last year’s budget, the majority of student groups will not see dramatic differences in their funding.

“All the changes made that night were pretty small,” said Dave Belsky, the SA’s executive vice president. “The night was basically $200 here, $250 there — pennies compared to the $2 million budget.”

Even so, the larger increases were given to the budgets of Chabad House, the Caribbean Student Association, WHRW radio station and the Asian Student Association, which all increased by $2,000. The Club Sports budget also saw a notable increase to $80,325, up from last year’s $73,000.

The largest cut of the night was made to the budget of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), which previously received $5 per semester for every undergraduate attending BU — totaling about $125,000 per year. This year’s budget changed NYPIRG’s funding to a flat fee of $85,000 per year.

“After having a number of meetings with NYPIRG, one of which included a representative from NYPIRG’s headquarters, financial council said, by a vote, that the money that was given to them could be spread out better to other groups,” said Michael Zablow, the SA’s financial vice president.

Since NYPIRG does not have a set contract with the SA, and this year’s election ballot did not include a referendum question regarding the group’s funding, the decision was left to the financial council.

“Financial council met for over 24 hours to try to get this budget the fairest it could be for every student group,” Zablow said. “NYPIRG was one of those groups who were discussed for a very long time; this decision was not made on a whim.”

One unexpected proposal was that of Ryan Wilichinsky, an off campus college representative, who motioned to cut the stipend budget of Pipe Dream by $5,500. The motion ultimately failed.

Though Pipe Dream’s funding is earned independently through advertisement sales, the newspaper’s finances are overseen by the SA, which must ratify the stipend portion of Pipe Dream’s budget.

When members of the newspaper arrived at the meeting to observe the discussion of their funds, College-in-the-Woods representative Alex Rosenthal proposed that the meeting move into executive session, which would allow only Assembly representatives to remain in the room for discussion and a vote.

But an executive session, according to the New York State Open Meetings Law, is legal only in a limited number of circumstances, such as when the safety of the public or the identity of an undercover law enforcement officer could be compromised.

Belsky, who chairs the SA meetings, said he did not realize that moving into an executive session was against state law, but since the stipend cut failed to pass, no irreparable damage had been done.

Though SA budget meetings are notorious for their length and frequent disagreements between representatives, Belsky said he considers this year’s meeting to be a success.

“I think it was one of the most productive meetings we’ve had as far as both factions of the SA working together,” he said. “By the end we actually all liked each other, which was impressive.”