ASRC budget still has a while to go before becoming official

While the Student Government (SG) Senate passed a controversial budget bill on Tuesday, it is far from concrete. The bill can still be vetoed in its entirety or line-item vetoed.

At least one item is expected to get vetoed. Administration has said that the $1.375 million endowment, one of the sources of controversy, will be vetoed because it violates USF statutes. However, a bigger point of contention is the 15 percent cuts to departments’ student payroll and programming budgets.

A lot is still unknown about whether these cuts will go through or how departments will need to adjust if they do, but there is a number of places where things may still change with the budget.

Now that the the Senate has passed the bill, the budget goes to Student Body President Moneer Kheireddine. Kheireddine has 10 business days to sign or veto the budget. While Kheireddine sat on the recommendation committee and voted against the budget when it passed the committee, he said he doesn’t plan to veto the budget now.

As of Friday, he hadn’t taken action on the budget, but he has until April 24 to make a decision otherwise the budget will move on.

After Kheireddine, the budget goes to the Vice President of Student Affairs & Student Success Paul Dosal. He then also has 10 business days to sign, veto or line-item veto the budget. It would then go to System President Judy Genshaft who has 15 business days to take action on the budget.

Anything that is line-item vetoed throughout this process would go into unallocated cash and can be reallocated by Senate. University administration doesn’t have the power to reallocate funds.

A budget needs to be agreed upon by July 1, when the new fiscal year begins.