Where does Student Government Association’s (SGA) budget come from? What does SGA do with that money, and how is it decided what the money will be spent on? These are all major questions that SGA gets confronted with.

First, SGA receives their budget entirely from student fees. What this means, is at the beginning of each academic year there is a student fee taken from each student, so we are not taking money from other groups nor taking money from other areas of the college. We have an obligation to spend our money wisely during the year so all students who contributed to the activity fee for the year can enjoy the benefits.

With that, SGA uses this money to finance other groups on campus. We also fund new ideas that we feel will better Simpson’s campus and benefit students. We do not fund groups or new ideas that do not abide by our finance code, which is open for students to look over.

So if we do decline new ideas or funding for groups we either feel it is not going to benefit Simpson’s campus nor benefit the students. Students on the senate are not the only ones who decide whether or not funding goes to new ideas or groups. We give many opportunities for students to put in their input.

SGA is a very transparent group. We send out our minutes every week to let students know what is discussed in each meeting, and we let people utilize our comment box. For those who may not be familiar with our comment box, it is a way for students to give us their feedback about the decisions we make, give us new ideas, or let us know their questions or concerns.

We thoroughly discuss new, major projects, which are reflected in the minutes so that students can provide feedback to their representatives. We give a fair amount of time for students to give us their feedback about a new idea or decision we make before funding an organization or group.

Also, we encourage students to attend our meetings every Wednesday. We feel this will bring an even better relationship between students and the senate. This also gives us the chance to clear up any confusion students may have with our decision- making.

The members of SGA really strive to make your Simpson experience great. We are always here to listen to your concerns about the budget or anything else. All students are invited to submit comments to our comment box, speak directly with any member of Student Government and our open meetings are in Pioneer Hall every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.

Selena is the SGA sophomore class president and PR representative.