The recently finalized line-item budgets for the 2008-2009 school year have caused significant changes to several campus organizations.

Intramurals took one of the most significant cuts. After overspending last year, the Student Government Association voted to cut their budget. The organization was given the notification that they would receive last year’s allocated budget minus the 2007-2008 deficits. The budget decrease of $4,500 since last year did not come as a surprise to Intramurals.

“This isn’t a shock, but is very disappointing,” Nicole Darling, assistant director of student activities/intramural director, said. “It is hard to have a successful program and then just stop programming when the end of the year is approaching and you are over budget.”

Each year SGA makes the budget decisions for the following school year, which begin with the line-item status organizations on campus.

“To be a line-item organization, a group must be a recognized organization for two years, show a campus wide impact, demonstrate a need for funding prior to the start of the academic year and provide a service to the campus that no other line-item organization provides,” Allison Lane, junior class senator and member of the Budget Committee said.

Currently there are 10 line-item organizations on campus: CAB, the radio station KSTM, Intramurals, Zenith, The Simpsonian, Sequel, RLC, LGBTQA and the school nurse. Of these 10 organizations, nine of them were fully funded and one, Intramurals, was not.

“We weren’t trying to penalize Intramurals,” Student Body President Kyle Liske said. “Of course, we would like to fully fund them. We don’t have an infinite amount of resources, so we have to make cuts somewhere as we decide what to fund and what not to fund.”

Rich Ramos, assistant dean for student activities advises SGA members on the importance of their decisions.

“I make sure that students understand that it’s real money that we are dealing with and that they have to decide for the greater good of the campus,” Ramos said. “I want them to be really critical about what does get funded and what does not get funded.”

Members of SGA spent numerous hours inside the formal SGA meetings and outside in committee meetings discussing the different budgets.

“This year’s SGA members are some of the most thoughtful students that we’ve had, and they want to do the best for campus,” Ramos said. “I’m proud that they don’t take the decisions lightly.”

Many members of SGA, including Liske, struggled making the decision about Intramurals.

“The Intramurals decision was difficult,” Liske said. “We went back and forth and the fact that they had a deficit for a number of years really weighed into the final decision.”

Financially speaking, Treasurer of SGA Sarah Schlitter backs the decision that SGA has made about the funding for Intramurals.

“As student government, we don’t fund deficits,” Schlitter said. “Therefore, the amount was automatically taken out for their amount this year. We want them to be more fiscally responsible.”

While the cuts were a necessity for the budget, they have already begun to show the effects on the Intramurals program.

“We have made cuts everywhere,” Darling said. “It is very unfortunate for Intramurals, one of the most highly attended and popular programs on campus, to suffer.”