The following figure shows the budget breakdowns for this year and next year. Student Group Programming, the largest funding category in both years, is composed of the Budgets & Appeals account as well SU executive appeals.

Student Union (SU) unanimously passed its $4.6 million general budget for the upcoming fiscal year on Feb. 18. This year’s Treasury budget was passed in 49 minutes, making it the second-fastest budget passed in SU history. The budget will create a new fund to pay for cleaning costs for student organizations, increase the budget for Night at the Pageant to $100,000, and decrease funding for student council.

Vice President of Finance and junior Meris Damjanovic said creating the budget for the 2026 fiscal year was an endeavor that involved senators and treasury representatives alike.

“From the start, the whole process is meant to be collaborative,” Damjanovic said.

SU’s annual budget comes from the activities fee, which is tied to tuition, and increased by 4.5% last year. The student activities fee is set at 1% of tuition, meaning that when the University increases tuition, the activities fee budget increases proportionally. When balancing next year’s budget, Damjanovic balanced the budget assuming there would be no increase in SU’s revenue for next year. Damjanovic said any additional funds from a revenue increase will be funneled into the Budgets & Appeals account, the main source of funding for student organizations on campus.

Damjanovic said that while there are plenty of line items SU has to consider when creating the general budget, SU wants to ensure that clubs get the funding they need.

Since the student activities fee is determined by the price of tuition, SU will not know what their exact revenue will be until this March. If tuition goes up as expected, the Budgets & Appeals account will have $2,644,287.96, which is a $27,706.38 increase from last year. If tuition does not increase, the Budgets & Appeals account will total $2,532,555.52, a $84,026.06 deficit from last year. 

However, next year’s Budget & Appeals account does not include cleaning costs, thanks to a new $75,000 fund called the WFF fund. The fund will go solely towards offsetting cleaning costs for WashU spaces, so student organizations will no longer have to budget or appeal for that money.

The Budget & Appeals account funds clubs’ annual budgets and appeals through the fiscal year. Money from the fund is initially allocated for club budgets, and any remaining funds are distributed by  SU Treasury through appeals. Damjanovic said the budget requests for the upcoming fiscal year total $2.5 million, a decrease from last year’s $2.7 million in budget requests, which will hopefully leave room for a larger appeals budget.

“Last year we allocated $2.2 million… so I don't think that we're actually going to allocate close to that $2.5 [million]. I think it will be a bit lower,” Damjanovic said. “The goal, as I've understood it from [the] Budget Committee, has been we want to give Treasury the greatest amount of flexibility,meaning the most amount of money in appeals.”

The appeals budget is the same budget that ran out earlier this fiscal year and was replenished through supplementary SU funds. Currently, this year’s appeals budget sits at $100,000 which, according to Damjanovic, may cover appeals to the end of the year. 

This year’s appeals budget deficit primarily came from clubs holding onto funds that were allocated for canceled events and or programming. To prevent a similar situation next fiscal year, Damjanovic took into account clubs’ spending histories when allocating funds in the general budget. 

“There were some lines where we looked in the general budget and we saw [clubs had] no history of spending on this for this past fiscal year, [or] the fiscal year before,” Damjanovic said. “That's money that would better be served by student groups who will spend it.”

Namely, these funds came at the expense of a 33% decrease in the SU executive appeals budget; a 17% monetary decrease in SU adjacent entities such as the school councils, Leaders in Interpersonal Violence Education, and Student Environmental Council; and a 22% decrease in Uncle Joe's block funding.

The budgeting process took 55 hours, according to Damjanovic, and was facilitated by four section teams composed of treasury and senate representatives. SU began using section teams post-pandemic, and the new structure has expedited the budgeting process.

Junior Grace Marcus, a Treasury representative and External Communications Chair, chaired the section team for SU entities, Leaders in Interpersonal Violence Education, and Student Environmental Council funding. Marcus said, by using this section team structure, SU representatives have to engage more deeply with the process. 

“When dealing with a budget of $4.6 million, we need to have productive discussions that capture the voices of all treasury and senate members,” Marcus said. 

Sophomore Sydney Kim, a Treasury representative and chair of the Social Programming Board (SPB) section team, said section teams helped bring different perspectives to SU’s budgeting.

“My section team consisted of six treasurers and five senators, presenting the opportunity for both legislative bodies to discuss their ideas and concerns,” Kim said. “I think this system allows for a diverse range of opinions as well as an overall more efficient general budget process.”

For this upcoming year, Damjanovic hopes that student organizations feel like they know what is going on with SU budgeting and finances. 

“This has been my motto all year: extreme transparency,” Damjanovic said. “If you don't understand something, or you feel a little upset, please come and talk to us; that's the environment that I'm trying to cultivate here.”