By Brendan O’Reilly
During a trip to Washington D.C. last month, student government president Pete DiSilvio made a discovery that had him seeing dollar signs.
At a conference of the American Student Government Association, DiSilvio became aware of federal and corporate grants for which SGAs are eligible.
The University SGA is a founding member of the ASGA. “We haven’t been an active member in years,” said DiSilvio. “We thought it would be a good way to increase SGA’s credibility across the nation.”
DiSilvio also said he wanted to network and get new ideas.
“We spoke to representatives from Barry University, who proceeded to astonish us by telling us they raised $18 million in three years,” he said. The Barry SGA raised money to build a parking garage on the Florida campus through corporate sponsorship. A credit card company contributed to the construction of the garage and in turn had a parking level named after it.
“At Barry University you can park on the American Express level of parking,” DiSilvio said
“We’re just beginning the research phase now,” he said. “I’m forming a task force of four of my senators.” One senator has a parent who works for a federal grant department and another researched government grants for her place of employment, according to DiSilvio. “The other two are just financial whizzes.”
“I figure between the four of them, myself and the Office of Development we’ll be able to come up with something solid,” he continued,
DiSilvio said he hopes that SGA will start receiving money this academic year. He is not yet certain which government agencies and corporations SGA will solicit.
“We’ll probably start with companies that operate on Long Island or the city and work our way up,” said task force member Kayleigh Thompkins. She is considering CBS and companies of that ilk.
If successful, the money will go toward activities and to concede requests from clubs that had previously been denied due to monetary limitations. Clubs asked for items ranging from a horse to boats to new computers.
“[R]ight now we have a severe finance problem,” said DiSilvio.
The 120 campus clubs requested $1.6 million for their 2006 through 2007 budgets, according to DiSilvio. The SGA had under $750,000 to allocate to clubs.
“We leave about $75,000 in what we call the contingency,” said DiSilvio. Any extra money that SGA comes across becomes a part of the contingency budget.
“Throughout the course of the year people come to appropriations and we give them money that’s left over.” The SGA appropriations committee is in charge of distributing the contingency budget, which could grow if SGA receives a grant.