On Nov. 20, the Associated Students senate of UC San Diego withdrew budget cuts proposed during the Week 7 senate meeting after affected student organizations called on the senate to recant. 

Seventh College Council A.S. Senator Erika Yu, proposed a revised budget through a special presentation during Week 6. At the Week 7 senate meeting, a revised budget that incorporated the cuts from the senators’ presentation was proposed. Following protests by several student organizations at the Week 8 senate meeting, the senate made adjustments and approved the finalized budget. Yu estimates that reductions to the budget allocated towards the Office of Student Organizations will end up around $20,000, as opposed to the originally proposed $45,000 cut.

Yu’s original initiative reduced funding for hundreds of student organizations in the categories of operating unallocated as well as tournament and competition funds. It was co-sponsored by Seventh College Council A.S. Senator Jacqueline Chang, Muir College Council A.S. Senator Trinidad Hellman, and Warren College Council A.S. Senator William Simpson. 

Programming unallocated funds consist of $8,000 granted annually to student organizations registered with the Center of Student Involvement. Tournament and competition funds are allocated for funding student organizations’ attendance to events external to UCSD. These cuts were proposed to address the A.S. budget’s $1 million deficit.

Yu said that the main intent behind her presentation was to create discussion about reducing the deficit as budget review began, so the senate would not have to pull as much from their mandate reserves.

“These cuts were made so A.S. would remain fiscally responsible, having funds in mandated reserves that we can later allocate in case of emergencies or for any of the A.S. offices, as well as to ensure no cuts would be made to basic needs, which includes the Office of Food and Housing Resources and the Office of [Student] Health and Well-Being,” Yu said.

“The reasons behind specific cuts is mostly efficiency, like where can money be best spent to benefit students,” she added. “A lot of that ended up being cutting a lot of internal spending, just making sure funds are distributed properly, reducing redundancy in positions, or line items.”

Currently, the mandated reserves hold over $1 million accumulated from the pandemic, as no offices were able to host events during this time. A.S. Chief Financial Officer Jacob Hoàng offered an alternative perspective on how to maintain these reserves, explaining that the A.S. Funding Guide only mandates 5% of student fees to be held in reserve. 

“The association got about $8.8 million in revenue this year from student fees; 5% of that must be in our reserves, so that’s about $441,000,” Hoàng said. “In our mandated reserves we have over $1 million, but realistically we only need $441,000 — that’s over $700,000 not being used. That’s not okay because those student fees should go back to the community and the student experience.”

Hoàng aims to reduce the total amount of money in the reserves and allocate that money towards something that would benefit students. 

“I plan to dissipate the reserves towards our offices. So, with our 20 plus offices, we can easily give back to the student experience because they host events, programs,” he explained.

Many students at UCSD were dissatisfied with the proposed budget and expressed their frustration toward the use of their student fees. Throughout the budget finalization process, the A.S. senate received backlash from students who attended public comment during the most recent senate meeting and on the UCSD subreddit. 

Students from several organizations protested the cuts at the meeting, such as students from the Black Student Union, Circle K, and Triton Gaming. Most of the students at the meeting who protested the proposed budget cuts were part of Triton TV, an A.S. entity. 

A TTV and UCSD alumnus returned to campus to leave a public comment at the Week 8 meeting. They recalled attending an A.S. meeting as an undergraduate student to discuss budgeting.

“Two years ago, I stood … in front of this very assembly room, asking for an increase in our funding. … Our A.S. representatives practically tripped over themselves to not only meet our proposed budget but to surpass it,” he said.

TTV is a student-run film studio that uses A.S. funds to provide students with professional-grade studio equipment, cinematography lessons, and the opportunity for students to show their films at film festivals. 

Representatives from TTV gave a presentation during Office Reports breaking down their budget, outlining how they voluntarily cut $20,000 from their budget this year and how the proposed cuts would impact their ability to afford film equipment or provide their usual services to their members.

The BSU specifically called for the A.S. senate to reaffirm their commitment to the success of and uplifting Black students by allocating more of the budget toward members’ attendance at the Afrikan Black Coalition Conference.

“During this conference, I was able to connect with Black students, both on our campus and on other UC campuses. I was able to make new friends and feel a sense of empowerment about being Black,” one student commented. “I was one of the students that received $750 to help with academic endeavors and to encourage academic excellence. We ask that the senate shows its commitment to the Black student population on campus and include a $20,000 line item to cover the conference.” 

A student from Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx por Activismo also spoke at the meeting, further emphasizing the need for funding conference travel expenses.

“These conferences are not free vacations for our students,” they said. “I think the least that this university and you all can do is provide the funding for students to have these opportunities.”

Addressing these concerns, Yu emphasized that the proposed budget was not intended to target the Office of Student Organizations or any particular offices.

“In my special presentation, I proposed not touching any of the student organizing programming unallocated, rather decreasing tournament funds so all quarters were even, which the AVP of student orgs supported,” Yu said.

Yu defended her intentions with the presentation. 

“I only really meant for that presentation as a way to open communication. I didn’t necessarily want all the cuts to be implemented exactly how I wanted, but I more so wanted to call to attention certain areas that I think can often be overlooked sometimes in budgets,” she added.

Hoàng disagrees with Yu’s proposed budget cuts. He explained that many student organizations rely primarily on funding from the A.S. senate for their events and projects.

“Student orgs that already planned events would have had to either cancel their events or find other avenues of funding, which is actually really hard for some student orgs,” Hoàng said. “We would have to cut back on the amount of student orgs we’d be able to fund; that’s what we don’t want.”

Hoàng believes a lack of communication between him and the group of senators who proposed the budget is the reason for this issue.

“It wasn’t my office or my AVP that wanted to impose a cut on the Office of Student Organizations because it’s not our intention to give student organizations less [funding],” Hoàng explained. “This was a proposed cut by a group of senators that came up with a number that was unrepresentative of what the student organizations’ needs are because my office already did those calculations. … This was due to the lack of conversation this group of senators had with my AVP and myself.”

Hoàng expressed surprise at this, seeing as he gave a special presentation about what he believed would be feasible cuts to the A.S. budget during the Week 7 senate meeting. 

“What they did was out of the ordinary. I don’t think it’s a bad thing because their intent wasn’t malicious, but it did disregard my expertise on the budget,” Hoàng said. “When our AVP of local affairs asked if [the group of senators] even considered the presentation at the start of the meeting, one of the senators, Senator Hellman, pretty much avoided answering that.”

Yu believed there was a general lack of communication regarding the agreed upon budget.

“I think a lot of senators and I felt like we weren’t really included in some conversations about how we originally got to that number,” Yu said. “We just wish there was a little bit more communication earlier on. But, later on, I think between Week 7 and Week 8, there were a lot of interpersonal one-on-one meetings for senators and AVPs to discuss that out and brief that proposal to everyone else.”

These meetings allowed AVPs from each office to clarify with the senators how much money they believe their offices need.

When asked if she and the group of senators behind the proposed budget ever discussed it with Hoàng, Yu noted his absence during her special presentation.

“I believe CFO Hoàng was not there when I presented the budget; he was not in attendance at one of those meetings, and so, I relayed my questions to different members of the [executive board] as well as called upon other AVPs that manage their own office to ask them why they needed a certain amount of money or how they were planning on spending it,” she said.

Reflecting on the student organizations’ protests, A.S. senators spent the remainder of their Week 8 meeting discussing and making amendments to the budget proposed in Week 7. The meeting ran until 1 a.m.

Hoàng explained that the senate reconsidered cuts made to the Office of Student Organizations in the executive budget. Hoàng’s initial proposed budget for the office allocated $595,000 toward student organizations. 

“We are at a total of $576,200 for student organizations,” he added. “Of this amount, $521,000 [goes] toward programming unallocated, $12,000 toward operating unallocated, and $30,000 toward tournaments and competitions unallocated.”

Although the amount allocated toward the Office of Student Organizations was lowered in the finalized budget, he emphasized the importance of the senate’s decision in ensuring the budget for student organizations would not fall short — as it did in the last academic year. 

“The association was able to approve the executive budget to make it so that it fit the happy medium of getting rid of the [dramatized] cuts by the senators, and it also was able to meet the expectations for what student organizations historically need,” Hoàng said. “Last year, student organizations ran out of money halfway through Spring Quarter, and we don’t want to run into that issue again this year.”

This is a developing story. The Guardian will continue to provide updated coverage as more information comes to light.