UPDATED: Nov. 13, 2015 at 11:47 a.m.

Syracuse University’s Graduate Student Organization discussed its budget surplus of more than $170,000 during a meeting on Wednesday.

A pattern of “conservative” spending on behalf of GSO ballooned its budget surplus to $173,800. The university subsidizes GSO with an annual budget of about $415,000, the sum of an $80 fee charged to each graduate student in their tuition bill.

GSO adopted its current expense rate during the 2013-14 academic year, after deficit troubles convinced its senate to cut spending.

The conservative spending patterns of student organizations that GSO pledges support to has also been a factor in the surplus.

“We, let’s say, allocate $80,000 to be given to (Registered Student Organizations) in our annual budget,” said GSO President Can Aslan to senators on Wednesday. “But at the end, they don’t spend all of it so the rest of it comes back to us. There has not been (an exact) trend for this over the past few years, but it has lead to an accumulation of a surplus.”

The excess funds heavily outweigh the $97,598 limit it’s expected to keep, but GSO Vice President of Internal Affairs Sam Leitermann said SU would not take action. The limit is a “self-imposed” threshold.

Leitermann added that SU would grow concerned if the surplus went into the “millions,” but the organization is still far from that sum.

The senate discussed community service initiatives and other ways that GSO could cut down on its surplus but made a motion to put off a vote on the matter. The initiative to go over our surplus will be an ongoing effort.

GSO senators also talked about restructuring their organizational framework to better address specific issues. There was a discussion that GSO could model a new structure off of the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students structure, and that the matter would need further study before any vote was scheduled. GSO currently has six executive officers.

Aslan modeled the proposal after the structure of the National and Graduate-Professional Students Association board. He said the new structure would help the executive board make more informed decisions in a more efficient manner.

The possibility of unionization with graduate student organizations from other universities was brought into the conversation as well. A GSO report that looked into the matter was finalized and released to the board members earlier that afternoon.

A vote on the matter was scheduled for the next meeting, but graduate students and senators voiced concerns about what kind of negative impact such a move would have on both the university’s treatment of GSO and its relationship with international graduate students.

Correction: In a previous version of this article, there were several errors. The GSO’s budget surplus was misstated, it is projected to be $173,800. The time spent on the group’s initiative to go over the budget surplus was misstated; it will be an ongoing effort. The GSO has not discussed unionizing with sister organizations. The nature of discussion about restructuring GSO’s leadership was also misstated; the group has not proposed to restructure leadership. Finally, the GSO just heard concerns from other graduate students about the group’s relationship with international students. The Daily Orange regrets these errors.

Published on November 11, 2015 at 11:26 pm

Contact Chris: cplucey@syr.edu