Senators from the Student Government Association passed a budget bill overwhelmingly during their first meeting of the year.

The bill passed 23-1, with Joseph Kerins, senator for Intercultural Awareness, being the lone No vote.

The $16,048 budget is a 25 percent reduction from last year, and in many ways displays the budget crunch throughout the university.

“Within student affairs, a lot of different places had different cuts, and that just kind of SGA’s share of it,” said Matthew von Nida, president of SGA. “But we’re making it work.”

According to a copy of the budget obtained by The DePaulia, $6,500 went toward operational expenses such as offices supplies, printing and promotional materials. According to treasurer Sophia Lammers, the organization is trying to cut back in many areas when possible.

“We’ve cut back on our promotional material significantly by about 50 percent,” she said. “So we’ve been trying to make cuts everywhere, and focus on only buying things that are a necessity within the office.”

Other items budgeted include retreats for both the executive board and general body, gifts, a banquet, food and other expenses. Also included were amounts between $60 and $115 to be spent at the discretion of each executive board member as stated by the SGA Constitution.

According to the Constitution, “the President, Vice President, and Treasurer shall cooperatively create a line item budget for the immediately following fiscal year,” and at least two out of the three must approve it before it goes to the senate for approval.

“The process is really organic,” von Nida said. “Sofia has some ideas to bring to the table; Vice President Christina Vera had some ideas to bring to the table. But really, there’s not a lot of flexibility outside basic things from office supplies to promotional material, and things to that extent that really just went with our budget as small as it is.”