Following Associated Student Government’s vote in favor of funding cuts to several of the line items that they oversee, twenty three students who attended the meeting last Thursday gathered in The Bulletin’s office to discuss the proposals that passed and their thoughts about the cuts. 

The proposed cuts were intended to help lower the cost of attending ESU, according to Megan McReynolds, ASG president and junior sociology major. 

The Performing Arts Board, The Bulletin, “The Sunflower,” Sports Clubs and ASG were the organizations whose cuts passed. The proposed cuts to “Quivira” and the Center for Early Childhood Education failed.

Although the cuts to the Performing Arts Board were amended, the line item still received a decrease in their funding. ASG voted in favor of decreasing the amount each full time student pays to  $15.85, rather than the originally proposed $14.40.

“We are gathered here today to discuss what just happened in the senate chambers regarding the votes to cut both the Performing Arts Board and The Bulletin,” said Cassidy Tilden, senior English and theater major, and representative for PAB at ASG’s meeting. “We want to thank Brady Lund, Gage Simpson and Kristian Gilmore for voting nay, and supporting us.”

Several of the students discussed how the senators said that the Performing Arts Board did not serve the entire student body, including Matt Mahr, junior theater major. Senators cited the total number of students, which is 400 according to numbers provided by PAB, that attend theater productions as one of the reasons why it did not affect the entire student body, during their discussion of the bill. 

Mahr spoke about how the Performing Arts Board funds the homecoming musical, which is what determines the theme for homecoming week at ESU.

“PAB funds about 35,000 dollars of the homecoming musical, the homecoming musical takes about 50,000 dollars to do after paying the accompanist, the musicians in general . . . the choreographer and the rights for the show,” Mahr said. “And all of that is something that establishes the theme for homecoming week, something that every single student participates in, but yet we (PAB) only affect four hundred students?”

Dayne Sabatos, freshman theater major, also spoke about the cuts to “The Sunflower” and the suggestions made by senators about potentially digitizing the yearbook. The original proposed cut of 8 percent to “The Sunflower” was amended and a 4 percent cut was passed, decreasing the amount that they receive from each full time student to $12.38. 

“I work in the archives, so we get requests, probably at least five to ten every week, for people to get basically photos from “The Sunflower” yearbooks,” Sabatos said. “Yes, you can do that digitally but technology doesn’t work the same way books do, eventually whatever you put it on will become outdated.”

After the vote on “Quivira’s” proposed budget cuts failed, students from that organization stopped by to say that even though their line item didn’t receive any cuts, they would continue to support the other organizations whose cuts had passed. 

The cuts that ASG voted in favor of are not yet finalized, according to McReynolds. If the tuition increase recommended by the tuition and fees committee will absorb the amount that students could save through the cuts, she has the option to not sign the bills, McReynolds said.