Last weekend’s annual budget hearings ended with the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) increasing funding for 5C organizations, ASPC President Nate Brown PO ’12 said.
During the three days of hearings, registered student clubs and organizations presented budget proposals to representatives from the budget committee for the upcoming academic year.
“During the budget hearings we create an initial list of allocations to figure out how much money in total will be given to 5C organizations,” Brown said. “So what we’ll be doing over the next week in the full Senate meetings is talking about, more broadly, our budget for next year, and a big part of this is the allocations to 5C clubs and also to Pomona-only clubs, which will get approved by Senate with the entire budget.”
Several new organizations petitioned for and received funds.
“There are definitely clubs that got started recently where this year was either their first budget request or their first significant budget request that I’m excited to see grow,” said ASPC Commissioner of Community Relations and President-Elect Sarah Appelbaum PO ’13. “One of those is Queer People of Color, which was an official club this past year, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next year now that they’ve kind of established themselves. Another one is The Alliance, which is a 7C club for trans, genderqueer and gender-questioning students.”
In order to petition for funding, student group leaders complete a budget request form that includes a mission statement, the number and college affiliation of their active members and their planned activities for the upcoming year. Each Pomona club has 15 minutes to petition, and 5C clubs have ten minutes.
“ASPC looks at the kind of activity the club has done for the year,” ASPC Vice President Leslie Appleton PO ’12 said. “So we ask: have they done a lot of events? Have they utilized the money that we’ve already given them well? Did they end up spending more than we gave them originally? How many Pomona members are involved in this club or activity? And we frequently take into account how much money they’re going to roll over from year to year.”
ASPC’s operating budget for the 2012-2013 academic year will be approximately $450,000. Last year, ASPC allocated about $60,000 of its budget to 5C clubs and organizations and about $20,000 to Pomona-only clubs and organizations, Brown said.
ASPC’s operating budget and funding of student organizations are the largest of the 5Cs due to the size of its student body, Appelbaum said.
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