Heather Madden
Published: January 8, 2006
What goes in must come out – that is, out of the student activity money pot. Do you care? You should, it’s your money.
“The general rule of thumb is that the total amount money that’s available for the student activity fees is dependent on the enrollment,” Dr. Martin, vice-president of student affairs, said.
Each and every semester, students are charged with a student activity fee per credit hour. This semester students were charged $5.38, per credit hour. For a course with three credit hours, that is a fee of $16.14.
That charge was not meant to discourage you. The money is actually divided every year and given back to the students – through the activities budget.
Last year the budget totaled out to $1,007,629. However, $25,000 of this budget was not used. So where did all of the extra money go?
The money that is not spent from the previous year is circulated into the budget for the following year, according to Martin.
Another portion of the budget is the contingency capital. Contingency funding is money set aside for student activities to fall back on. This year’s contingency money is budgeted out to more than $30,000.
“Let’s say our brain bowl team wins the championship and they have to go to Orlando, but they didn’t budget for that,” Martin said. “For that, what I do then is take money out of the contingency money to help them go to Orlando.”
Martin said that unexpected budgets are covered by the contingency funds.
This year’s activity budget equates to $1,154,942, so you should probably be curious as to what you are paying for.
According to Dennis Reynolds, PJC Student Affairs coordinator, “Nearly a million dollars is collected and broken down into three departments.”
These departments are athletics, humanities, and other student activities to include SGA.
Athletics receives a greater cut of the student activity money, $483,618 while humanities receives $265,520, and the remaining $405,802 goes towards anything from leadership clubs to graduation, and even food.
This year’s budget for athletics is 42 percent of the student activity money. Paul Swanson, the men’s basketball head coach said, “As a coach or a player, or any area for that matter, everybody needs more money.”
For the 2005/2006 season, men’s basketball was budgeted to receive 14 percent of the athletics funding. This year, men’s basketball is budgeted to receive 11 percent. Although the percentage is lower, men’s basketball will obtain $4,000 more than last year.
“We are grateful for everything we get and try to utilize it as best as we possibly can,” Swanson said.
The largest chunk of the athletics budget, 19 percent, or $94,358, will go towards the student bus-which is used for student travel. Intramurals is the second largest at 14 percent, or $67,777.
Another substantial portion of the athletics money goes towards scholarships. Athletics scholarship funding is fixed at $116,060 this year.
Other student activity money is allocated to the humanities department, which includes academic clubs, music, and drama.
This year three percent, or $7,600, of the humanities budget went towards the Brain Bowl. That’s a 10 percent increase from last year when brain bowl received a $6,250 budget.
Other portions of the student activity money towards humanities were divided between Debate, the Literary Association, Corsair, Guitar Association, Drama, Chorale, the Wind and Jazz Ensembles, and the Lyceum.
This year, the PJC Corsair received 27 percent of the Humanities budget. This funding covers everything from salaries to printing.
The drama department is apportioned $41,065, or 16 percent of the humanities budget for 2006/2007. That’s a $1,000 increase from last year.
The money assigned will go towards the cost of costumes, sets, and even the actors and music directors for the performances.
Don Snowden, Head of the Department of Music and Theatre said the cost of putting on a production is anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000 depending on the size of the production.
“We try to use every bit,” Snowden said.
For the Music Department, the Wind Ensemble is budgeted to obtain $29,450, which is 11 percent of the humanities budget. This aids student travel, and $22,000 of the Wind Ensemble money will aim towards scholarships.
The Jazz ensemble will acquire $9,700. $6,350 of the jazz ensemble will be given towards scholarships.
The Lyceum is estimated to receive $53,260, which was stagnant from last year. This capital is to be distributed between maintenance, equipment, Keegan, and honoria fees.
The remaining funding is divided through SGA and other student organizations; covering Pensacola, Milton, and Warrington Student Government Associations, and student clubs.
“The majority of our funds go to providing activities to students and provide funds to about 30 clubs and organizations,” Peter Wilkin, Director of Student Life, said.
“My role is to direct various student coordinators on each of the campuses to get together with their SGAs and come up with their operating budgets,” Wilkin. said
This process seems to work well, considering for the 2005/2006 year only one budget was broken within the SGA budgets, and that was the Milton campus.
Last year Milton campus SGA was allocated $6,625, and had expenses totaling out to $7,546. This year the Milton campus SGA has a quantum of $9,650, which is a 46 percent increase from last year.
Warrington campus SGA has a planned disbursement of $5,812, and Pensacola campus’s SGA is budgeted out to $10,500.
Another expense you may not have been aware of is food. When you are offered free food in the student center, you probably paid for it with your student activity fees. The SGA organizes these events.
“This is the one budget where food can be bought,” Reynolds said.
Last year, more than $25,000 was spent on food alone. This year, the food budget totals out to $24,646.
With all of these expenditures coming out of your student activity fees, you should probably consider participating in one of the many student programs, if you haven’t already.
Of course, the amount of money budgeted each year depends on student enrollment. So the more our student population increases, the more money we will have towards student activities, and more options will be created.
“We just hope that the school continues to flourish and grow because then everyone gets more money,” Swanson said.