Student Senate leaders plan to restructure the way student organizations apply and re ceive money so more can ben efit from university funds.
Student Senate Treasurer Austin Laforest said he will be reformulating the Senate Appropriations Commission fund and uFUND programs to make the “tough” rules easier to navigate.
SAC funding is a pool of general fee dollars overseen by Student Senate. The money is available to fund student or ganizations’ events. Organiza tions can apply at the begin ning of each semester in order to receive money for the next semester.
Organizations can also apply for money from the uFUND, offered by the Divi sion of Student Affairs to or ganizations that are provid ing alternatives to high-risk behavior. It is paid for by legal fines associated with student drug incidents.
Laforest’s goal is to make SAC and uFUND a cohesive unit and give more organiza tions freedom to spend the funds how they wish.
Students can currently ap ply for SAC funding by filling out an application available on senate’s website. Senate hosts a workshop each semester to explain the application pro cess and funding procedure, which includes a final inter view between the applying student organization and SAC representatives.
“We try to make SAC fund ing as transparent as possible so people are not intimidated,” said Student Senate President Nick Southall.
This year SAC will have a budget of $450,000.
SAC was unable to give away $60,000 of its budget last year, Laforest said. Those ex tra funds went toward funding large organizations such as the Ohio University Programming Council and the International Student Union.
In order to prevent funds from carrying over to the next year, Laforest said he will dis cuss options for budgeting SAC funds with organizations that often apply and receive SAC funds.
Students can download an application for uFUND on the senate website to be reviewed by the Division of Student Af fairs.
“The key with uFUND is be ing able to make the argument that you’re giving students a safe alternative to high-risk behavior,” said Helen Cothrel, a junior studying physics who successfully used uFUND in one of the three student orga nizations she helped establish, Bobcat Tabletop, which offers games and food to students.
Cothrel said uFUND helped increase the number of people attending her events.
“We want to reach out to new freshmen and catch them before they fall into the trap. Just because their friends may be more of the party type, that doesn’t mean they have to do it as well,” Cothrel said.
