Simpson College’s Student Government Association will be holding its spring budget hearing online this semester.

The spring budget hearings are for organizations needing immediate funding for events happening either before or right when classes start back up in the fall. 

This year’s budget hearings were originally taking place the remainder of the Wednesdays with forums due March 31. With an extended spring break, SGA announced the pushback of the deadline to April 17. The budget hearing will take place the week of April 20.

As with everything on campus moving online, SGA and the Financial Advisory Committee hope to keep the hearing the same as it would be on campus. 

The FAC committee members are senior class senators Matt Turnley and Austin Greenwalt, junior class senator Casey Spring, sophomore class president Anastasia Facio and first-year class senator Heaven Lynch.

“The only thing different is the timeline and that we aren’t having the person to person meeting,” said Molly Fisher, senior class president and head of the FAC.

“Rich Ramos has a student development zoom account that can hold up to 300 people so whoever from the organization wants to come are more than welcome to,” Fisher said.

In order to participate in these hearings, the organization must need immediate funding and provide a current itemized breakdown of their budget along with an itemized budget request. 

The forum for budget requests divides the budget into categories of equipment and supplies, programs on campus, speakers, forums, conventions, trips and other allocations. This must be itemized on an excel sheet to be submitted with the forum. 

The budget hearings can deal with organizations requesting money for either the fall semester or entire school year.

“If they want to, they can do just for the fall and then come back in the spring and do a spring budget request or they can do it for the entire year,” Fisher said.

Fisher says to make sure to read the SGA financial code before submitting the forum. 

“Read the finance code, which should be something everyone reads before submitting a budget request, but especially when you’re submitting that big of a budget request for the entire year,” Fisher said.

The SGA Finance Code can be found on their website. The Finance Code defines not only who can request money, but how money can be spent, and the budget hearing will take place. Fisher also says it’s important to ask questions about the finance code.

If you have any questions about the budget hearings you can contact Fisher at [email protected] or SGA advisor Rich Ramos at [email protected].