On May 7th of 2013, students of SFCC held an ASG meeting at 1:30 in the afternoon about trying to balance budgets.
At this meeting the student body discussed how SFCC, SCC, Athletics, IEL as well as other clubs had to come up with a compromise on budget cuts.
“Club budgets can be severely impacted,” student body, Rockford Radke said.
Sports scholarships were one con- cern to the Sport program. NWAACC colleges get full tuition while Washington colleges are given only 40 percent of tuition.
“The reason for the difference is because Washington has so many talented athletes that we try to distribute the money out equally,” Athletic Director, M. Athletic Commissioner and PE Dean KenBurris said. “Everyone is equally unhappy,”
There was a debate between SFCC and SCC about how much to cut. SFCC and Athletics were pushing a 10 percent to 15 percent increase while SCC and IEL were pushing a 0% to 3%.
“If we allowed a zero percent to three percent budget cut, we’d be pushing a $138,000 deficit and rumor has it that a sport would most likely be cut,” Burris said.
On Thursday, May 10th of 2013, students of SFCC, SCC and IEL came up with a solution. Athletics brought it to everyone’s attention that budget cuts should be 7.5 percent. The problem with that decision is some service and activity (S&A) fees would have to be cut.
Throughout the year, Student Government and Athletics work on the budget and try to figure out how to make things work. SFCC, SCC, IEL and Athletics are 24 percent lower than the legislature wants.
“We don’t want our budget to be like other colleges and Universities. So we raise it enough to where we are still below but not as much,” Burris said.
About 95 percent of colleges raise their S&A fees to the max while col- leges of Spokane haven’t and prob- ably never will. Instead of $138,000 budget cut, SFCC, SCC, IEL and Athletics decided to have a $54,000 cut.
“The $54,000 budget cut is not sustainable, it’s only short term for the time being and will hold out for the year,” Burris said, “I don’t think this year cuts will affect Sports Scholarships. At least they shouldn’t.