An improved SBAC
This year's Student Budget Allocation Committee report was less than ideal - $15,000 went unused.
With the SBAC as one of students' primary funding resources, the result equates to $15,000 in missed opportunities for events for student groups.
Jason Nichol and Brittany Mouzourakis, Student Government Association president and vice president, made this an issue on the campaign trail. We hope for better results next year.
Here are our suggestions for making the funding more accessible.
Digital display
An improved Web site is one obvious route. But it's not enough to make SBAC funding visible on a Web page; the page should provide clear and detailed explanations of the funding.
The page should include a Frequently Asked Questions section, helping students better understand which groups and projects are eligible for funding. It also should make clear some scheme of limits for each group so that students have a better sense of the size and frequency permitted of their requests.
The page should include a visible, up-to-date figure of the remaining SBAC funds. Many students likely were unaware that $15,000 remained available to them; now that they know, it's too late. Live updates would help prevent this.
There also should be accessible digital copies of whichever forms are required to request money. This would help students understand the steps they must complete and permit them to start quickly.
Personal interaction
The SBAC funding should become more than an item on the agenda of SGA meetings. It should be more emphatically stressed on representatives within the SGA. It may be worth making mandatory, at least heavily suggested, a list of proposed projects for the semester.
This would provide for each group a list of funding goals, and it would more quickly give the SBAC an understanding of the scope of proposed projects.
Moreover, if funding is going unused, the SGA should take further steps to let students know about the surplus. Reach out beyond representatives, make fliers, write a letter to Central Michigan Life - anything other than continue the status quo.
