BUDGET PROCESS

Constructing a student body budget is one of the most important tasks your student government will undertake. Dispensing student body funds involves a process, which requires careful analysis. There are a few steps your students can follow to help ensure success in your budget making process.

Step 1: Involve all stakeholders: You want to involve the students and staff your budget will affect. Constructing a budget blindly without input from student representatives, coaches, club advisors, yearbook staff, journalism staff, etc… is a recipe for disaster. You must include all of the stakeholders, and actively seek a priority “wish list” from them. At this point, you are just seeking input and not guaranteeing a set amount of funds. (Attached is a form you can use to help aid the process)

Step 2: Review the previous year’s budget. It is imperative that your students carefully analyze the previous year’s budget report. They need to be familiar with revenue items, expenditures, and unforeseen costs. For example, students need to know what they projected for PE clothes sales versus what the revenue they actually received. Furthermore, students need to understand fixed costs, or costs that ASB will be responsible for covering, such as officiating fees or athletic game management costs.

Step 3: Make projections. Once you have carefully studied the previous year’s budget, you will be better equipped to make an educated projection for this year’s budget. Now you can make assumptions on how much revenue you plan on making on budget items. It also allows you to reevaluate any budgetary items in which you experienced a shortfall.

Step 4: Now go back to the stakeholders’ “wish lists”. At this time, you want to go and review the “wish lists” of the various stakeholders. Carefully analyze their requests and start to determine the funds the student government will be able to allocate. Most likely, you will be unable to honor all of their requests. Remember, you can only allocate funds based on the projections you have made. Therefore, telling people “no” is a harsh part of the budgetary process.

Step 5: Create a rough budget. Now is the time to create a rough budget to plug in all the numbers for revenue and expenditure costs. Allow your students to freely input the numbers as they see fit. Most likely, when you have completed the rough budget, your students will realize they have overspent by gazillion dollars.

Step 6: Make the appropriate adjustments. Your students will reevaluate the budget and make adjustments where appropriate. Perhaps, they will realize they need to trim some costs in certain areas.

Step 7: Create the final budget. You have now spent countless hours to construct a meaningful and legitimate budget. You have made sure your expenditures match your revenue, and you’re ready to put it out to stakeholders. Please remember, not everyone will be completely happy with the budget you have created.In human nature people generally want more. Remind everyone that budget creation is a student driven process.

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Example Budget Request Form (PDF)

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