SGA gives more funds to student organizations through GAF

Student Government Association President Sami Zoss is excited to see what student organizations will do with the new money available through the General Activities Fees increase approved by the South Dakota Board of Regents last week.

“With the GAF increase, it’s really exciting, we had an extra $50,000 to allocate between large and small organizations,” Zoss said.

Zoss said large organizations will see the bigger increase, but small organizations will get their share as well.

“I’m excited to see what our large orgs are going to do, because they are the ones obviously getting the biggest increase. But then even our small orgs,” Zoss said, “We gave them the max amount. We can only increase, per our bylaws, 10 percent, so we gave them a 9.9 percent increase.”

SGA Business Manager Emily Van Laecken said there is a process to go through before getting money from SGA.

“(Organizations) basically come in and talk about their requests and what they asked for and why, and then after we have talked to them, the budget committee meets as a whole and talks about all the different requests and then looks at how much we were allocated through GAF, and then kind of breaks it down depending on the number the organization reaches,” Van Laecken said.

Diego Marquez, a member of the budget committee, wants students to know their organizations could receive funding from SGA.

“I think it’s really important for students to know that this is a thing, because I don’t think a lot of students in student organizations knew that they could be budgeted if they just adjust their constitutions,” he said.

Van Laecken said that if student organizations follow SGA’s fiscal guidelines and bylaws, they need to attend a budget seminar and complete a budget request form to become funding eligible.

The amount of funding awarded depends on what type of organization they are, she said.

“Depending on whether they’re a small org or a large org or a club sport, then we decide how much to allocate them,” Van Laecken said.

Zoss said the GAF increase gives SGA more freedom in allocating funds.

“It’s just really nice because we have organizations doing some great things,” Zoss said. “So it’s helping us not to limit these organizations and what they can do and the reach that they have.”