Program funding requests advance

The Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC) recommendations for Fiscal Year 2020 have not been reviewed or approved by UTRGV President Guy Bailey as they are still pending review by other university officials.

As of press time Thursday, 64 recommendations out of 68 requests need to be approved by Luzelma Canales, senior associate vice president for Student Success, and Patricia McHatton, executive vice president for Academic Affairs, according to Emilia Treviño, financial manager for the Office of Student Success and SFAC co-chair.

“We got very creative because of our budget that’s so small,” Treviño said. “We wanted to award as many things as possible.”

UTRGV organizations and departments submitted funding proposals totaling $13,748,826.96. However, the university estimates it will collect only $13,264,189 in student services fees.

Athletics requested $8,734,530, but the SFAC recommends a $130,744.09 reduction.

The Student Media department asked for $305,442.64 and the SFAC recommends full funding.

Chess sought $441,778 and the committee recommends full funding.

Leadership & Mentoring solicited $668,006, but the fee committee recommends a $20,000 reduction.

“A lot of the times because we’re working on such a small budget and our requests are so big that the committee determined things that were one-time requests,” Treviño said. “So, we, ourselves, manually extracted it.”

Currently, UTRGV students pay a $249.96 student services fee per long semester, which is $20.83 per hour, capped at 12 credit hours.

The SFAC expects a response from Bailey by June or July, Treviño said.

She also said the committee has become more efficient with its decisions.

“I feel we’ve gotten smarter at allocating our time because I know everybody’s time is very valuable, especially the students,” Treviño said. “So, I think that a lot of the people that had already been in the committee before, myself included, were able to learn from the practices we’ve had and what works and what doesn’t.”

Besides Treviño, SFAC members for the 2019-2020 cycle are student representatives Mario A. Flores, Chelsea Peterson, Oscar Trujillo, Alejandro Saldivar and Diana Lara; university representatives Karla Loya, Marcela De Léon, Douglas Stoves, Hilda Silva, Canales; and ex officio Frances Rivera.

“We feel very good about what was funded and what wasn’t funded,” Treviño said. “Like I said, we were also very creative in certain requests so we can maximize the requests and utilize our money wisely.”