UGBC had a $377,500 budget for the 2023–24 academic year.
So far, the organization has spent 85.7 percent of the budget, according to Sahithi Thumuluri, UGBC director of finance and MCAS ’25.
The budget is broken down into the organization’s eight divisions. Here’s how it’s been spent.
Executive Council
The Executive Council has spent 97.5 percent of its $78,300 budget this year thus far.
The figure included stipends for the UGBC president and vice president, which have held steady at $4,000 and $3,500, respectively, for at least the last three years, according to Thumuluri. Stipends are also provided for UGBC senior leadership and the graduate assistant who advises the organization, she said.
Thumuluri said the division overspent its allocated budget on the fall retreat and dinner and dialogue events.
“For dinner and dialogue, we spent more than we anticipated because of inflation, because of increases in management costs,” Thumuluri said. “You’ll kind of see that pattern throughout where event management costs have gone up, and we just kind of had to roll with the punches we were given.”
Communications
The Division of Communications spent $7,391.90 this year—120 percent of the budget it was initially allocated.
The overspending can largely be attributed to the fact that the division spent over $1,000 more than anticipated on UGBC-branded merchandise, according to Thumuluri.
“Merchandise for UGBC went up to reflect the size of our organization,” Thumuluri said.
In other areas, the division spent less than expected—it used less than half of its allocated funds on flyers and posters and just $169.99 out of the $2,000 allocated for tabling supplies.
“We were able to use some of our leftover money from last year to buy a lot of those sort of supplies,” Thumuluri said. “The fliers and posters has to do with a switch to a more digitized marketing strategy,” Thumuluri said.
Student Initiatives
The Division of Student Initiatives (SI) has spent $36,560.11 this year—69.6 percent of its budget.
SI executed two new initiatives targeting women’s needs this year—the Women’s Summit, which cost $8,000, and Free, Period., an initiative that provides free menstrual products in women’s bathrooms around campus, which cost $3,500.
Coming in at $10,627.53, SI’s largest line item was for student wellness initiatives, including mental health and self-care programming such as No Shame November.
“SI has—in the last couple of years—taken on a lot more of a student wellness mental health kind of focus, so it makes more sense to support it that way,” Thumuluri said.
While the division allocated $10,000 for a guest speaker event and had plans for a freshman spring fling event, administrative hiccups hindered the planning of these events, and they were postponed, Thumuluri said.
“We had a plan set up and then scheduling conflicts made them unable to actually get executed,” Thumuluri said.
Senate
With a budget of $2,900, the UGBC Senate saw the lowest allocation of UGBC’s eight divisions, but it ultimately spent $4,359.68—over 170 percent of the original figure.
The bulk of the Senate’s budget went toward funding subsidies. Thumuluri said the Senate saw an overwhelmingly positive response to its new laundry subsidy for Montserrat students. Within 24 hours, over 300 Montserrat students filled out a form expressing interest in the program, but funding was only available for 100 students.
“This really kind of demonstrated a strong positive need for this kind of work and this kind of initiative,” Thumuluri said.
Thumuluri also said the Senate is primarily concerned with enacting policies for UGBC, not putting on programming like other divisions.
Environment and Sustainability
So far, the Division of Environment and Sustainability has spent $11,382.13—65.6 percent of its budget.
The division had initially allocated $1,000 toward subsidizing Green2Go, a reusable container-sharing program in BC Dining locations. UGBC Leadership decided to allocate $2,000 more toward the initiative, however, after BC Dining asked them to fund the program for all incoming freshmen, Thumuluri said.
“We saw great use of it, and we saw a consistent use of it that carried out throughout the year,” Thumuluri said.
The division also executed a successful Thrift Swap and Shop event where students could exchange clothing, but the $300 budget proved too big, Thumuluri said.
“It’s more so we’re just facilitating the swap rather than us actually spending a ton,” Thumuluri said.
AHANA+ Leadership Council
The AHANA+ Leadership Council (ALC) has spent $116,412.18 this year—88.9 percent of its budget.
The majority of the division’s budget is allocated toward ALC Showdown—with a total price tag of $86,654.50, the event was the most expensive line item across all eight UGBC divisions.
The event ultimately came in at over $20,000 more expensive than the budget accounted for, but leftover funds from a planned guest speaker who fell through helped to cover the difference, according to Thumuluri.
“We were able to have the leeway to account for the increases in vendor prices this year relative to what our allocation was,” Thumuluri said.
This year, the ALC Ball was moved from downtown Boston to 300 Hammond Pond Parkway, which helped reduce the event’s cost to $21,432.31—less than half of the $45,000 that was budgeted for it, Thumuluri said.
“It’s a lot cheaper of a venue, so it ends up being a better way for us to use our money and a more effective way to reach students on campus,” Thumuluri said.
Queer Leadership Council
The Queer Leadership Council (QLC) has spent $42,652.58 so far—77.8 percent of its budget.
Thumuluri said that one of QLC’s most prominent and successful events of the year was Pride Week, which featured a packed lineup of 14 events for a total cost of just $1,105.37.
“It was absolutely wonderful, and, as you can see, you can do a lot with $1,000,” Thumuluri said.
QLC allocated $3,000 toward Born This Way Cafe and $5,000 toward a guest speaker event, but the events fell through after Craig Lutz, former associate director of student leadership and government and adviser to UGBC, left Boston College abruptly before spring break.
“In the process of trying to pick up the slack and figuring out who was now going to be responsible for a lot of the responsibilities he previously had, the timeline and trying to pick the ball back up led to delays that meant the events couldn’t necessarily be executed,” Thumuluri said.
QLC Formal—one of the division’s trademark events—stuck closely to its $30,000 budget, according to Thumuluri. In addition, QLC’s monthly Lambda dinners, on which $3,458.66 has been spent, have repeatedly proven successful and well-attended, Thumuluri said.
“There’s a high demand and a great, impactful, meaningful community building that comes out of them every month,” Thumuluri said.
Council for Students with Disabilities
The Council for Students with Disabilities (CSD) has spent $28,298.09—82 percent of its budget.
CSD spent $13,922 on a wide variety of guest speaker events, Thumuluri said.
“We had RJ Mitte this year, we had a contestant from the Bachelorette come, we had Noah Lambert come, so we have been able to do a lot, and it’s been one of our strongest branches of CSD programming,” Thumuluri said.
With a budget of $10,000, CSD’s second largest line item was CSDisco, a dance celebrating students with disabilities in the BC community, according to Thumuluri. Thumuluri said that although UGBC leaders first came up with the idea several years ago, the event ultimately never took off amid concerns that the dance could be too loud and overstimulating for students with disabilities.
“[CSD] differs a lot from our other DEI councils, where there’s a really strong community within those identities and within those groups, whereas students with disabilities, there’s not necessarily the same kind of need for a community building space in the same way, so there were better ways for us to use our funds than a disco,” Thumuluri said.
Thumuluri said CSD was able to stick closely to its $4,000 allocation for its Dinners in the Dark, which gives participants a chance to experience what it would be like to eat a meal as a blind person.
“We were able to work really closely with BC Dining and event management to facilitate this event that has been really positively attended over the last couple of years,” Thumuluri said.
According to Thumuluri, any unused funds across the eight divisions will be returned to the University and reallocated to other organizations that receive funding from the student activities fee.
“The University takes it back, and then they reallocate it back out with next year’s student activity fee to us, to CAB, to SOFC, to club sports, to all of the different groups on campus that pull from the Student Activities fee,” Thumuluri said.
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