ASUO senate voted to move funds returned to surplus to a rollover fund. What does that mean?

Last week the Child Care Subsidy returned around $45,ooo to surplus, which brought the total surplus to $97,160.

Groups typically return funds to the surplus so that it does not count as unspent money and therefore isn’t deducted from their subsequent budgets. The debate at tonight’s senate meeting was whether to move the returned funds to a rollover fund or keep them in the general surplus.

The rollover fund essentially saves the money and adds it to next year’s surplus. All money in the current surplus automatically goes into the rollover fund July 1 when the new budget begins.

Senator Miles Sisk proposed moving the funds to the rollover fund to provide support for groups affected by the budget caps. The 2014-2015 ASUO budget gave many groups zero percent increases or just enough to maintain current service levels which could potentially increase demand for next year’s surplus.

“This rollover fund was created this year when we had a huge surplus just in case we didn’t have a big one next year,” Sisk said.

Many senators mentioned issues with last year’s surplus being significantly lower than the current surplus. Senator Taylor Allison said she supported the motion to move funds returned to surplus to the rollover fund. Fellow Programs Finance Committee member and Senator Elect Yelin Oh agreed.

Many senators took issue with moving returned funds to the rollover fund. One point addressed by senators was that current seniors who paid the incidental fee would not have access to the returned surplus that they paid into if it was moved to the rollover fund.

Another point addressed was that since the money would automatically go into the rollover fund by July 1 and there are only three more senate meetings this term, the discussion was redundant.

“I don’t see the point in having this discussion when we already have money and most of the money will be rolled over anyway,” Senator Helena Schlegel said.

The motion to move returned funds from surplus to a rollover fund passed. With returned funds added to the rollover fund the surplus now sits at $52,926.