Activities and athletic budgets waiting for approval

Despite a nearly unanimous vote and quicker progress than a year ago in Student Finance Council budget negotiations, determining the funding allocations and reductions for the 2015-2016 academic year brought more than a bit of tension.

This year’s meetings totaled eight hours. Mt. Hood’s Athletics and co-curricular groups spent two hours presenting their budget requests for next year, and then two hours each discussing and voting on the motions.

Since the proposals have been voted through, the ASMHCC (student government) executive cabinet and student senate must approve the plan.

From noon to 1 p.m. on both Thursday and on March 9 in the Student Union, open budget hearings will determine the final approval process. All Mt. Hood students are invited to participate in the discussion and voice their opinions.

“All of the Finance Council, including ASG (Associated Student Government) will take it into consideration,” said ASG President Alma Pacheco. “Since it’s the students’ money, it should go back to the students. That’s (the) student council’s main goal.”

In mid-March, the Associate Vice-President for Student Services will endorse the budget. The Business Office will proofread and the budget will be sent to the MHCC board for final action.

Mt. Hood’s ongoing enrollment decrease resulted in a 5.5 percent reduction in the budget for 2015-16. Theoretically, all activity groups were required to cut 5.5 percent from their own budget to maintain the Finance Council balance at zero.

Co-curricular programs needed to cut $1,785 combined, but not all groups made the minimum cut needed to balance the budget, said Seth Albert, Student Activities Board (SAB) wellness programs coordinator.

Publications (groups) such as The Advocate newspaper, Venture magazine and Perceptions literary journal were unable to meet the 5.5 percent mark because printing is a fixed cost that makes changes difficult, according to their student representatives.

Because not every activity made the cut, the senate had to trim $350 and the SAB cut another $408, plus an additional $500 from the SAB receptions (staff assistance) budget that already had seen a sharp reduction.

“Two years ago, our receptions budget was at $20,000; last year, it was $16,500 and this year we cut it down to $11,500,” said Keiko Downing, SAB director.

“It’s going to affect receptions big-time, because our receptions coordinator is actually in charge of one of our biggest events which is where we announce our president and vice president for the following year,” Downing said. “We just decided that maybe next year, we won’t make it that big of an event.”

According to Downing and Ashley Gass, SAB director of finance, consensus was achieved among the co-curricular activities but the budget was not settled in a cheery fashion.

“It was a lot more aggressive this year than the past few years I’ve been in,” Downing said. “Instead of ‘Can you cut this?’ it was like ‘I’m not cutting, so you need to,” she said.

Forensics (Mt. Hood’s speech and debate group) did not volunteer any additional budget reduction after their initial cut. Gass said there was some spirited debate between Forensics and other groups over that move.

Athletics faced a challenge of the opposite kind. The sports programs had to figure out where to allocate $12,043, but according to ASG Adviser Meadow McWhorter, the athletic groups collaborated well.

“The amount of participation and discussion from all the student representations was phenomenal,” McWhorter said. “In my six years of being involved in student council, this was hands-down the best council we’ve had. They were thinking with their ‘athletic department hat,’ versus their ‘individual program hat,’ ” she said.

MHCC Athletic Director Kim Hyatt oversaw the students’ decisions on where to put the money.

“The student representatives allocated these funds into the several areas, including: assigned athletics, baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s track and field, softball, and volleyball,” Hyatt said. The majority of the excess money went to fund the women’s basketball away uniforms, to replace substandard apparel, and material to help maintain the fields used for softball and track, she said.

In the end, the proposed budget was approved by a 7-1 vote by the council representatives.