Student Fee
Advisory Committee
Student Affairs Budget Review Team (SABRT) Report, 2002-2003
Undergraduates: Sumanta Chaudhuri Graduates: Dean Gerdeman
Matt Kaczmarek Antonio Sandoval
The Student Affairs Budget Review Team (SABRT) met three times during Winter and Spring Quarters 2003. SABRT is comprised of the AVCs for each of the four Student Affairs Organization divisions and four student members, all of whom are also SFAC representatives. The SABRT was chaired by AVC Soncia Lilly (SA Administration).
SABRT serves as the internal Student Affairs mechanism by which they prioritize budget requests for the upcoming academic year. Requests are ranked by this body, after which the Vice Chancellor ultimately decides what to send forward, either to the Chancellor’s budget process, or to SFAC, depending on the funding sought. This opportunity allows students to partake in each level of the prioritizing process, and provides them with a unique perspective during SFAC budget deliberations. In SABRT, each of the divisions is given one vote, and each of the students are given one vote, so that there is equal weight between the administrator’s votes and the students.
In the first SABRT meeting, the committee briefly reviewed in general terms the budget reduction plans for the various Student Affairs divisions. For fiscal year 2003-2004, the Registration Fee budget at UCLA will experience a reduction of approximately 20%, which has serious consequences for the Student Affairs Organization. Because of this, the departments and divisions within Student Affairs had been in planning for months on various options to mitigate and manage the reductions. The reduction plans, along with other budgetary information from Student Affairs, was included in a binder that was given to all representatives. SABRT discussed that some money would likely be available in the Registration Fee pool for consideration of new or increased spending. Despite the budget cuts, this money was available, in part, because of the SFAC decision to not entertain any new requests for 2002-2003. It was discussed that Student Affairs would be forwarding new funding requests for SABRT and SFAC consideration.
At the second meeting, SABRT reviewed and discussed a list
of new Registration Fee funding requests from various departments within
Student Affairs, including Student Health Services, Student Psychological
Services, the Center for Women & Men, Bruin Corps,
the
At the third meeting, SABRT voted on which requests to prioritize and send to the Vice Chancellor, who then forwards the requests, as deemed appropriate, to the SFAC for consideration. A total of $2.5 million in temporary and permanent funding requests was under consideration. The committee voted on each requested item and those ranked the highest by vote were approved to forward to the Vice Chancellor. Since only two student members were present, their votes were counted double by SABRT to ensure that students had a equal voice to the administration. After voting, approximately $912,000 in permanent requests and $475,000 in temporary requests for Registration Fee funds were prioritized.
Respectfully Submitted,
Dean Gerdeman
Graduate Representative