Remember, RSO budgets turn over on July 1st
Your current budgets for the 2024-2025 fiscal year expire on July 1st, 2025. You still have time to use your remaining budget!
Budget Hearings for the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year are coming up this Spring semester, and Registered Student Organizations can start preparing to put in their budget requests! All Registered Student Organizations that would like to receive funding must go through the entire process, or they may be penalized!
Budget Hearings - Week #1
Week #1 of Budget Hearings is from February 13th to February 16th meeting with the Ways and Means Committee. The schedule is as follows...
- Thursday, February 13th (MUB Alumni Lounge A) @ 5-10PM
- Saturday, February 15th (MUB Alumni Lounge A) @ 8AM-10PM
- Sunday, February 16th (MUB Alumni Lounge C) @ 12-5PM
Budget Hearings - Week #2
Week #1 of Budget Hearings is from March 6th to March 8th meeting with the Ways and Means Committee. The schedule is as follows...
- Thursday, March 6th (MUB Datolite Room) @ 5-10PM
- Saturday, March 8th (MUB Alumni Lounge A) @ 8AM-10PM
Yes, this is required for all Registered Student Organizations
Everyone must attend an informational session at the beginning of the semester to be able to participate in budget hearings without a penalty. You must send one representative per Registered Student Organization, but you only have to attend one of the three available sessions.
Tuesday, January 7th: 8:30-9:30PM
DOW 642
Wednesday, January 8th: 8:30-9:30PM
DOW 642
Thursday, January 9th: 5:00-6:00PM
DOW 642
At this meeting, you will receive important information from the USG Treasurer and an informational packet that will be useful in planning your budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year!
You will make a Proposed Budget that will be used to guide your budget allocation for the future fiscal year. You should include all details and expenses on this document that you expect. Please note that the amount that you allocate to each line item does not restrict your spending - it should only be used as a guide to lead to your final proposed allocation amount.
In accordance with Undergraduate Student Government Bylaws and Student Leadership and Involvement Policy, there are multiple things that cannot be funded:
- Alcohol
- Giveaways
- Food (unless it serves a cultural purpose)
- Salaries for full-time or part-time staff
- Contributions to political or other campaigns
- Awards or prizes to members
After you create your proposed budget, there are a couple of items on the list before you actually participate in budget hearings. As the process moves further along, your Registered Student Organization will receive more information on how to complete these steps!
1. Sign up for a 10 minute Budget Hearing Timeslot on the available dates (see above)
2. Fill out the Budget Hearing Questionnaire that provides us important information about what you are requesting
3. Make adjustments based on the questions / instructions from the Ways and Means Committee
One of our Ways and Means Committee will review your questionnaire submission and send you feedback as deemed necessary (for example, if you list a prohibited item on the budget, or if we need more clarification). Please make sure to work with them to ensure that your requested budget can be finalized!
During the slot that you sign up for, you will attend your budget hearing, where select members of the Undergraduate Student Government (on the Ways and Means Committee) will ask questions and determine the final allocated funds for the club based on what you've submitted. We may ask questions about the nature of your organization or the proposed budget.
You may have up to 6 representatives present during your hearing. We will call you into the room once we are ready, so please wait as we finish up previous hearings and deliberations.
Budget Hearings are not meant to be intimidating or condescending!
We have to review hundreds of clubs and their budgets during the hearings, so our representatives want to ensure that we understand what the club does and how it serves the Student Assembly! While we ask that you best represent your club and the things that it does, we are not meant to judge you, your club, or your presentation during the hearings. Remember, we do have an appeals process for our allocations!
How we evaluate your budget
We hold ourselves to a couple of standards and quantifiable data points when looking at the allocations for each organization. We also review each allocation in comparison to other clubs of similar functions, and categorically against the entire university. While the results and discussions of each hearing are private, we try to make the process as transparent as possible.
We do evaluate the impact that the club has on the Student Assembly, the number of active students in the club, the usage of the club's budget during the current fiscal year, and factors that are supported by objective data.
We do not evaluate or consider a representative's affiliation with a club, a club's beliefs, practices, or activities, the confidence or presentation of information during Budget Hearings, or any "outsider" information that would not be supported by observable data and easily available to the general public. We also do not penalize a club for an Executive Board's past actions, however, we may look at the current (2024-25) fiscal year's spending (e.g. what your club did in 2022 would not have any weight on our final allocation).
If you do not agree with the allocation that we came up for you during the Budget Hearing process and can provide reasonable evidence for why our recommendation is inaccurate, you may appeal your allocation. If you are a Registered Student Organization that missed their Budget Hearing before, you can also appeal with a valid reason for why you missed it.
We do reserve the right to decline any appeals to the Budget Hearing process.
Our Constraints on Allocations
Unfortunately, we only have so much money that we can allocate during Budget Hearings (from the Student Activity Fee). Due to the rising costs of everything for all clubs, this might mean that we are unable to match the amount that you requested originally. This is something that all clubs have to deal with, and we try our best to still objectively view each club's allocation relatively to the money that we can allocate.
There are also other funding opportunities throughout the university that you can pursue alongside your Student Activity Fee allocation from Budget Hearings. Please reach out to us if you have any questions.
- The Opportunity / Reserve Fund
- Getting a department / college to "sponsor" your club
- Having "Member Dues" or "Event Dues"
We want to help you throughout this process. There are multiple ways that you can reach out to us and ask questions about your budget hearing and recommendation!
If you have questions about how the entire process works (including where the money comes from, how we allocate funds as we do, and what you can do to ensure your Registered Student Organization stays on track with its funding), please reach out to us via email!
You can reach out to the USG Treasurer, Isobel, about any questions regarding the budget hearing process! Just send her an email (usg-treasurer@mtu.edu) or schedule a meeting using the available times on her Google Calendar.
The USG Office is open throughout regular business hours for any questions or concerns to be brought up. Visit us to ask any questions or give any feedback. Even if we cannot answer your question right then and there, we can forward you to someone who can answer!
usg@mtu.edu
(906) 487-2406
The Undergraduate Student Government is a Special Budgetary Group of Michigan Technological University. The Undergraduate Student Government's website is hosted on Michigan Tech property, and any and all logos that contain the Michigan Tech brand are owned by the university itself.
