On Monday, Wichita State’s Student Government Student Fees Commission learned of a more than $900,000 shortfall in funding for fiscal year 2026. Tuesday evening, the Student Senate passed a bill allowing them to pull extra money from a separate fund.
In the emergency meeting Tuesday night, which will be available via YouTube on Wednesday, the Senate voted to allow the commission to access $600,000 from the Student Government Association’s Special Projects and Capital Fund.
The Senate first passed legislation Tuesday night allowing them to review funding for organizations and services that normally would not be scheduled to undergo review this year.
When the commission learned of the shortfall on Monday morning, it postponed hearings for the groups up for review and sent an email asking all services and organizations to prepare a report on what potential cuts to their groups would look like and submit it for review by Tuesday at 3 p.m. Now, all entities that receive student fees funding are scheduled to present on Wednesday and Thursday.
Sen. Cynthia Pizzini questioned the amount of time groups who were not up for review this year were given to prepare their reporters and schedule presentations on Wednesday or Thursday.
Student Body Treasurer Jia Wen Wang said the groups were informed following Monday’s morning meeting. Wang added that she thought all the presentations had been received, which was met by Sen. Andrew Bobbitt shaking his head.
After the meeting, SGA adviser Gabriel Fonseca confirmed that some entities have not submitted presentations for the commission to review. They are as follows:
- Wichita State Debate Team
- TRIO Disability Support Services
- Historically Underrepresented Students Grant
- Non-Traditional Student Scholarship
- Wichita State Esports
- WSU Varsity Esports
- WSU Tilford Commission
Bobbitt, who sits on the commission, said the commissioners would likely question the entities on why they did not submit presentations when requested during the groups’ hearings.
Bobbitt said it “speaks very poorly of the organizations,” and that failure to attend hearings would likely result in funding cuts.
“I cannot speak on behalf of Finance Commission as a whole, but I know that for me, not presenting would be equivalent (to) forfeiture,” he said.
Speaker of the Senate Victoria Owens said that reviewing funding for all groups was necessary to ensure that all entities scheduled for this year did not incur the brunt of budget cuts.
“It would require us to cut that amount of money, or similar amounts of money, from the year that we’re currently in, which would be disproportionate when it comes to reallocating the budget in an equitable way,” Owens said.
After voting to review all the funded entities on Tuesday, the Senate moved on to unlocking money from the Special Projects and Capital Fund.
Student Body President Kylee Hower spoke in favor of passing the amended bill.
“We have the power, the honor and the opportunity to choose how we spend our money and how we address these problems,” Hower said. “I think it’s very important, and I’m very blessed to be a member of this university and to have the ability to speak on behalf of the students on how I want to spend our money.”
The bill passed with 16 in favor, two opposed and one abstention. The approval means that after the Student Fees Commission hears the budget presentation from all its funded entities in the coming days, it has an extra $600,000 it can spend. But that still puts the Commission about $300,000 short of its expected funds.
However, several commissioners said at both Monday’s commission meeting and Tuesday’s Senate meeting that they would work to balance the budget through cuts and possible increases to student fees rather than using all of that extra money.
Student fee hearings will start Wednesday morning at 8:45 a.m. in the Rhatigan Student Center, room 233. The hearings on Wednesday and Thursday, as well as deliberations on Friday, will be live streamed via SGA’s YouTube channel. A list of the groups presenting each day is in the live streams’ descriptions.
