The new ASCC budget proposal had the majority of the Cerritos Falcons show up to the ASCC Senate room.
The proposal was brought to the ASCC Senate meeting on April 22, during which a large number of athletes showed up in regards to a 3 percent cut to their budget, with only $184, 321 allotted by the committee from the projected expenditure of $218,535.
However, according to Dean of Student Services Gilbert Contreras, during the special ASCC Senate meeting on April 24, fiscal services said its had allocated an additional $106,000. The original proposal is yet to be updated with that money.
He added that the committee also considered how funding certain accounts would benefit the entire community.
He said, “[Members of the budgeting committee] went through a training, in which they established the priorities of how they’re going to fund certain activities or events that came in.”
The initial proposal also outlined expenditures within ASCC, like an allocated reduction of $13,000 to Homecoming floats, $35,000 to ASCC construction and a new request for student activities classified salary for its administrative secretary, who is paid 50 percent of her salary from ASCC money.
“Construction is perhaps not the right word, basically we want to improve the facilities here at Student Activities and it was closer to $100,000. That’s why this is an agenda item for [the senate] to talk about,” Contreras said.
He outlined that refurbishing with new furniture would be in the tens of thousands as well as painting which would cost $10,000.
Contreras added that the idea behind this expenditure was to professionalize the setting for the ASCC student government.
He emphasized that that budget committee was working with limited resources, namely its system which still uses hard copy records.
Commissioner of Budget Dalia Jimenez said, “Antiquated doesn’t cover it, archaic, dinosaur maybe. I’ve had to start from scratch.”
She added that the balancing of the budget would be easier with an updated system.
The new budget will be presented in today’s ASCC Senate meeting at 2 p.m. in BK 111.
