Heading into its last meeting of the fall semester, the United Student Government (USG) handled the reimbursement of John P Harris Film Society’s (JPH) budget and the handling of its own internal budget.

John P. Harris Film Society president Troy Martin and treasurer Kelsey Myers addressed the USG legislative body Monday afternoon regarding receiving reimbursements to their club’s holding account.

Throughout the semester, officers of the JPH funded events for their club out of pocket rather than through the club’s holding account. 

This action was in direct violation of guidelines laid out during treasurer training at the beginning of the semester which calls for the use of club funds from a holding account for club events. 

Previously, clubs were able to use a credit card from SAIL in conjunction with its holding account or were able to purchase items out of pocket to be later reimbursed. Beginning this semester, clubs were required to go to SAIL for gift cards which line up exactly with the amount of money funded by USG to purchase items for their event.

“However with this semester, us being busy, we forgot these new methods and unfortunately reverted back to the old ways so that we could all make necessary purchases on time for our freshman film festival,” Martin said.

In addition to purchases for the freshman film festival JPH officers bought items for the Halloween double feature and Star Wars marathon. All three of these events combined to create a total of $174.82 out of pocket.

“There was some miscommunication in our club and although we knew about this we failed to inform our other members about this new system of purchasing items,” Myers said.

After discovering their errors, Martin and Myers went to SAIL and USG to correct the balance of JPH’s holding account and addressed USG to have approval of fund reimbursement, which was approved. 

USG Treasurer Amber Mole informed the legislative body where the money they’ve allocated throughout the year has ended up during the Treasurer’s Report.

At the beginning of the fall semester, USG was allotted a budget of $50,000 to allocate funds to clubs and organizations. Since then, $21,500 has been spent from this budget between both fall funding periods as of November 19. This leaves $28,499 remaining to be spent.

Working with the SAIL office, it is projected $6,591 will be leftover at the end of the fall semester. Following the end of term, the money will be placed back into the Student Activity Fee fund.

We start the spring semester with a whole new budget,” USG Treasurer Amber Mole said.

For the spring semester, the legislative body approved an internal budget of $11,550 which will be distributed toward Pioneer Community Day, Forum, stipends, marketing, a caution fund and an end of the year event.

USG plans to host a beach-themed Forum in March and Pioneer Community Day in April as part of their plans for the spring semester.