Senate approves budget allocations

By Hope Yang     4/22/25 11:38pm

The Student Association Senate passed Blanket Tax funding allocations for the coming year, voting 19 to three with four abstaining April 21. The budget included cuts to some Blanket Tax Organizations, including Rice Women’s Resource Center and student media, with the money to be reallocated to the SA’s Initiative Fund.

SA president Trevor Tobey said that increasing the Initiative Fund — a source of Blanket Tax money for any student organization launching new initiatives — will make up for current limited Student Activities/President’s Programming funds and potential cuts by the federal government.

“I think it will create a competitive environment for finances at Rice,” said Tobey, a Hanszen College junior. “The political atmosphere and everything makes this move so important because it gives us the financial flexibility to fund the things that students most care about.”

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Several senators and students spoke against the funding allocations, including Lovett College President Ayush Suresh, who said there were flaws in the budget approval process.

“If the Senate votes to reject the budget, there are all these kinds of threats of budget failure and people not being funded in the future,” Suresh continued. “I believe that there needs to be some sort of amendment to the way that we do this funding so that Senate can have an amendment process to the proposed budget.”

Will Rice College president Mary Margaret Speed said there was poor communication during and after the discussion that made the situation appear worse than it was. 

“I especially did not appreciate the message we were asked to potentially send out that recruited cultural organizations to reach out to us and essentially blamed the [RWRC] if we were voting no,” said Speed, a junior. “I think that that was unfair and I want to say that going forward I would appreciate it if communications were more considered.”

Hanszen College senator Dorian Echasseriau, who voted no, said the budget did not meet BTO needs. Echasseriau said they believed there were other alternatives allowing changes to the budget.

“The students of Rice are entitled to a fair and comprehensive budget, not one that fails to meet essential needs or is altered in ways not prescribed by the constitution,” Echasseriau, a freshman, wrote in an email to the Thresher.

Following the approved BTO budget allocation, BTO organizations are able to apply for a one-time increase in their allocated budget for the coming fiscal year. The SA will vote on funding increases for RWRC and other BTOs April 23. 

Suresh said the reliance on one-time budget increases instead of amending the budget points to changes that need to occur with the fund allocation process.

“The fact that we’re going to have to resort to multiple different one-time increases to satisfy people is indicative of the fact that this is an incomplete and poorly designed process,” Suresh said.

Suresh said he would feel satisfied with the budget passing if RWRC was able to get a one-time increase.

“Provided that a satisfactory one-time budget increase for the RWRC is achieved, passing the budget was the most straightforward approach,” Suresh wrote in an email to the Thresher. “I knew that the vote was almost certain to succeed, and I chose to vote no in protest of what I felt like were significant procedural issues that underlaid this entire saga.”

Suresh added that cutting RWRC budget so that events would potentially be funded through the Initiative Fund contradicts the BTO structure. 

“Blanket Tax Organizations are voted on by a two-thirds majority in [the] SA Senate to be considered trustworthy organizations of the community,” wrote Suresh. “Though the SA cites their movement of RWRC events to the new Initiative Fund as increasing equity, it simultaneously redirects funds from an organization that has actively worked to and succeeded in increasing its presence on campus.”

SA treasurer Jackson Darr said that the Initiative Fund will be one of the largest in Rice history, and will be an open process on a rolling basis. 

“It’ll be a very quick turnaround in knowing when you’re going to get funding for your event, unlike the previous Initiative Fund where it’s all one group of allocations in the fall and then one in the spring,” said Darr, a Lovett College freshman.

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