Pictured Above: Every student organization or club took a budget cut this year. Seven clubs lost their funding entirely.
MK Brittain | The Crow’s Nest
By James Bennett III
The Harborside Activities Board will receive dramatically less money in student fee revenue in 2020-2021 under a budget adopted last month by student government and approved by Regional Chancellor Martin Tadlock.
The Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Office of Leadership and Student Organizations, Campus Recreation, The Crow’s Nest and Student Government itself will also take big cuts – although the budget still includes $61,950 for 32 salaried positions in SG.
Meanwhile, seven other campus organizations that sought money will get nothing.
The budget cuts come at a time of declining enrollment at USF St. Petersburg, which has seen a plunge in first-time-in-college freshmen since the campus began rapidly raising its admission requirements to comply with the conditions of consolidation.
The decline in enrollment means a shortfall in revenue from the Activities and Services fees that students are charged for every credit hour.
Half of that revenue automatically goes to the University Student Center each year. The remainder is divided among university clubs and organizations by Student Government – a process that is inevitably marked by confusion and sometimes bitter wrangling.
The new budget was approved by Tadlock on May 16.
For 2020-2021, SG said it had $1,565,679 in A&S revenue and cash reserves to allocate to clubs and organizations – or 4.2 percent less than last year.
Those figures don’t square with the budget numbers allocated by SG and reported by The Crow’s Nest in the spring of 2019.
Bob Herron, the assistant director of Student Life and Engagement, attributed the difference to changes that had to be made after SG approved last year’s budget.
“For instance, I know that last year the salary from my position was allocated” out of cash reserves, he said. “But then once the budget was approved, it had to be moved out of cash because you can’t do staff members out of cash.”
In budgeting for 2020-2021, SG slashed the entire travel and marketing budget for nearly every organization.
Kevin Jimenez, the chair of SG’s appropriations committee, said the budget writers tried to prioritize funding that affected a wide scale of students.
“Ideologically, when you look at it, (travel is) thousands of dollars to send very few people away,” Jimenez said. “The value that you get from that is not tangible.”
The Harborside Activities Board, an organization that sponsors campus-wide events to enhance student life, took the biggest budget cut – a $91,627 reduction (60%) from last year’s allocation of $152,576.
That means the organization now has less funding for Homecoming activities or USFSP Week, an annual week of programming that celebrates campus pride. Once consolidation of the three USF campuses takes effect July 1, the celebration will become a consolidated USF Week and take place early April.
The organization was also allocated $7,000 for late night and weekend programming.
Jerrica Stovall, associate director of activities and program at USF St. Petersburg, said the late night funding would be used by the director of late night and weekend programs, which is a new position.
“The new HAB director will start at the end of August but I believe has already been thinking of what they will offer,” Stovall said in an email. “The position was created to ensure programmatic efforts during those times as our campus and captive audience of residential students increase.”
The Office of Multicultural Affairs took the second biggest hit in the new budget. The organization took a 21.6% cut, or $17,410 less than the $80,757 it got in 2019-2020.
This year, OMA prioritized events related to Martin Luther King Jr. Day and LGBT Pride, with $7,000 allocated for contractual services. It also allocated $6,500 for a diversity and inclusion conference.
Meanwhile, SG didn’t allocate any money for OMA’s requested Unity Council, which was used by OMA to fund smaller multicultural clubs. This year, according to Tristen Johnson of the Student Life and Engagement staff, the Unity Council money will be used for the Stonewall Suites and the upcoming King Suites while smaller multicultural organizations are able to secure their own SG funding.
OMA did not receive funding for staff uniforms, either.
The third most affected student organization was the Office of Leadership and Student Organizations. LSO took a $34,078 cut (20.9%) from this year’s $162,784.
LSO was given $5,158 to fund three staff positions this year. $1,800 was allocated to The Source, which is a resource room for various student organizations. $996 was allocated for Pete’s Auction—when students are able to spend “Pete Points” they earned in extracurricular activities — and $1,400 was allocated for The Rockys, the awards given each year to outstanding students and staff.
Although LSO requested $11,000 for civic engagement programs, SG only allocated $3,000 from the cash reserves for the program. SG also removed funding for the organization’s Disney Leadership Series, a leadership development program conducted at Disney World.
Campus Recreation took the smallest cut this year with a $78,335, or 11%, decrease in funding from $711,602. This means the campus fitness center will close an hour earlier than usual Mondays through Thursdays, and open an hour later and close an hour earlier on the weekends.
The Crow’s Nest took a $4,652, or 11.2%, cut from $41,320. Circulation will remain the same — at 13 issues a semester and 500 copies per issue — and no staff positions were eliminated.
The cut primarily came from the newspaper’s unspent travel budget and reduced hours for the editor-in-chief, managing editor, creative director and advertising manager.
The editor- in- chief will have a $4,314 salary, which is a 16 percent pay cut. The paper’s managing editor and creative director will each have $2,876 salaries, which are 25.3 percent cuts.
However, the paper was able to give raises to multiple editors and fund its adviser’s salary of $1,216 with A&S funds instead of cash reserves.
Student government itself took a 15.5% cut this year. The $18,932 slash to its $122,077 budget means SG will no longer fund its annual trip to the state capital.
Both of the SG retreats, which are taken during the spring and fall semesters, and the SG banquet were also cut.
But SG found money for 32 paid positions in its ranks. The 32 salaries add up to $61,950.
This year, the USF St. Petersburg SG campus governor will have a $7,800 salary. The lieutenant governor will make $5,550, and the deputy attorney general will make $3,325.
As of June 5, SG did not allocate any A&S fees toward the Tampa-based “federal” student government that serves all three campuses in the consolidating USF system. However, the organization did direct $6,000 from cash reserves for a “System-Wide Fund for Federal SG.”
Last year, when most organizations saw their budgets cut, SG allocated almost half of the cash reserves — or $87,178 — to itself. That meant SG was able to give itself a raise of nearly 19%
What’s being funded through the cash reserves?
SG allocated $82,284 for 2020-2021 from the cash reserves, which consists of leftover A&S money that student clubs and organizations did not spend.
Jimenez explained that the cash reserves are primarily used to fund non-recurring expenses. The reserves are also able to be used for emergencies.
For example, after SG over-allocated $2,000 for the campus butterfly garden and $2,500 for the “Free the Tampon” program, those funds were moved into the cash reserves.
Student Life & Engagement received $25,000 for “Professional Development and Recruitment“ and $2,400 for a cell phone allowance from the cash reserves.
Additionally, HAB was given $5,000 for promotional items, and $3,500 of that is set to be used for event promotion T-shirts.
Other organizations
Amnesty International, Business Opportunities For Student Success, the Community & Civility Club, the Investment Club, the Sexual Assault Survivors Support group, the League Of Women Voters and the South Asian Association did not receive any funding.
