Nearly a month after rejecting the original recommended student fees allocations, Student Government Association passed a revised recommendation Wednesday. 

The budget totals $9,203,284. Now the budget heads to University President John Bardo’s desk for approval. If Bardo gives his approval, campus organizations will receive the allocations.

Compared to the first debate on student fees, Wednesday’s debate was minimal. Debate lasted about five minutes before Senate passed the fees. Student Body President Joseph Shepard said this is likely due to senators realizing the difficult job of the student fees committee, which recommends the allocations. Shepard was a member of the committee. 

“I think that senators realized that we’re in a crisis financially, just higher education in general, so I don’t think they didn’t want to debate, but at the end of the day, they trust us and they realize that we put the money in the best place possible.”

Treasurer Mariah Smith, another member of the student fees committee, said a majority of senators took issue with the original funding bill because that bill would have allocated no money to Mikrokosmos, Wichita State’s literary journal, and to the Baja SAE club. Under the new bill, those organizations will get some of their requested funding. 

Kayla Haas, editor of Mikrokosmos, said receiving $2,000 instead of $6,000 is better than getting no funding.

“We’re glad that we can at least attempt to maintain ourselves for another year while we look into other avenues for funding,” Haas said. “Of course, we would have liked the $6,000 because it would have been able to put us out and more into the community so we would have more reach.”

Shepard said he is happy all of the departments that requested student fees funding now have an idea of how much money they will get.

“There are departments and directors who are scheduling their next year activities right now,” he said. “They weren’t able to readily do that because we hadn’t approved the budget.”

At the end of Wednesday’s meeting, Eric Sexton, vice president of Student Affairs and former SGA adviser, commended Senate on passing the budget.

“I know this was very difficult,” Sexton said. “But that is what serving on student government is about, developing those leadership skills, having to make those challenging decisions, because that’s what this leadership experience is supposed to be about as being a senator. I want to commend each and every one of you for doing that on behalf on the rest of your student body in a first-class way.”