Community Senate was short over $5,000 in budget spending, an issue which has now been mostly resolved.Just before winter break, the business office informed Community Senate Treasurer Jill Burchell that there was a shortfall in the budget. Burchell needed to find over $5,000 to pay for student activities.

“But, [Community Senate is] not just rolling over and accepting it,” Burchell said at the time. She petitioned the Board of Trustees to find a way to rid her and Senate of the entire problem.

Since then, clubs have given back all funds they can do with-out this spring. In fact, Senate now has a surplus, which it is setting aside as a type of special events fund for clubs that may need emergency financing for, say, a coffeehouse.

But Burchell warns that the surplus is meager, and clubs should remain frugal spenders.

Additionally, Community Senate, until a few days ago, was mandated to pay for a portion of the salaries of Jeff Jeske, advisor to The Guilfordian, and Leslie Moss, associate director for student activities and the first-year program. Senate must also pay for the Binford Formal and the budgets of each student club. Those expenses would have put Senate in a $15,000 hole, rather than the $5,000 they ended up facing.

The problem was due in part to the relatively low retention rate of first-year students after the fall semester. When students leave after the first semester, they take back half of the full-year student activity fee that they paid upon enrolling. Therate of retention was low enough to impel Community Senate to take previously allocated funds back from clubs it deemed inactive.

Senate originally said that unless the Board members came up with the funding, the money had to come from student clubs. So Burchell proposed that the nearly 30 inactive clubs give half of their year-round budget back to Senate. An inactive club was defined as one that did not spend 25 percent of its budget during the fall semester.

Rebecca Saunders, events coordinator and advisor to Community Senate, said that “Jill expanded on the already existing clause,” allowing for clubs which only spend money during the spring semester to keep their money.

Bowling Club president Jason Wynn said, “I think the proposal is a good idea. If you haven’t used 25 percent then it is fair to take half back.”

This proposal would have left each inactive club with at least twice the money it spent during the fall semester.

Another proposed remedy to the Senate’s problem was for each club to look at the money it was going to need for the rest of the year and decide what it could give back to Senate.

When the figure came closer to $5,000 instead of the $15,000 figure that Senate was facing when it thought it had to pay a percentage of Jeske’s and Moss’ salaries, this seems like a much more plausible plan of action.

When $15,000 was needed, Burchell seemed skeptical that the clubs would be able to find that much money to give back.

Kirsten Dexter, large group coordinator of the Guilford Christian Fellowship, said, “I don’t think, if they looked carefully at each group, they would need to take away half of our budget.” Senate would love for the clubs to find $5,000 to $7,000, because that would make the budget cuts unnecessary.

“It is not my intention to stop a club from functioning,” Burchel said. At the Feb. 1 Senate meeting, there was discussion of a possible flat cut, which would have been used as a last resort only. It would have cut as much as five percent or as little as one percent of each club’s budget.

Many students opposed that idea because it would take money from active clubs.

“The budgets should have been properly allocated to begin with. I don’t think active clubs should have to pay,” said Rachel Crabtree, member of the International Club.

To date, though, nearly all of the problems have been resolved. Saunders said that there was no one to blame for the confusion. She called it “a piece of the overall budget weirdness.