Give some specifics as to what changed in the budget for some organizations besides the T—shirt lines.

SUNY Buffalo State’s United Students Government saw their budget decrease slightly from last year. As a result of the decrease, each organization lost their budgetary t-shirt line.

This year’s budget allocations were at $1,367,425. Within the budget, USG had a capital of $1,000 and an income of $77,300, making for a total of $1,291,125.

“It is what it is. Numbers do not lie,” said USG Treasurer Diaisha Richards about the budget decrease.

“There have been budget cuts because of the decrease,” Richards said. “Each organization, including USG internally, has lost their t-shirt line. Even organizations with no t-shirt line have been affected in some way. The reason we picked the t-shirt line is because it seems like the least important line, opposed to food and special events.”

Part of the reason for the budget decrease has been lower student enrollment at Buffalo State.

“The budget has been decreasing over the last three years because of enrollment, which everybody knows,” USG Executive Vice President Emily Leminger said. “And when enrollment goes down, our budget goes down because it’s completely connected to the student activity fee. So the less students, the less fees we collect.”

The most expensive internal program this year was USG’s Springfest, costing $100,000. Leminger said that number has stayed pretty consistent in the three years she has been at Buffalo State. She said that USG tries to be as affordable as possible for Springfest.

“We always have to pay for UPD and sound and lighting, and, you know, we have to pay to make the tickets, and we have to pay for all of the expenditures that you would be going to a concert,” Leminger said. “Everybody knows UPD is pretty costly, as well as lighting and sound and all of that kind of stuff, and whatever comes with the artist, and that’s like housing, hotels, whatever that happens to be.”

Despite the cost of Springfest staying consistent while the overall budget decreased, Richards said that Springfest hasn’t interfered with managing the budget at all.

Leminger said that USG always follows the guidelines of the budget. She said that USG is a non-profit organization. Any extra money from the budget gets used in some way to benefit Buffalo State.

“We don’t use any extra money from what we’ve already allotted,” Leminger said. “If there’s extra money, it’s the same thing that happens with all of our other money. It goes into a surplus, and then we handle the surplus the way that people have to pay bills in their company and we allocate it specific ways as any other company would.”

Leminger said that one year, USG used surplus money to purchase equipment for Houston Gym.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @KatPoster