Campus Recreation recently made some changes to its budget next year after its original budget proposal was denied.

The original budget asked for $211,000 for campus recreation; however, after some deliberation by the Apportionment Board, the amount of funds allocated to Campus Recreation is $185,485.

Sarah Daugherty, the assistant director of facilities, said the decisions made to the revised budget came after evaluating the needs of the department.

“We evaluated the needs of the department, facility and programs to determine where to make cuts,” Daugherty said. “The Apportionment Board budget allocation is the entire payroll budget for all student employees with Campus Recreation. As such, there was little choice in what was cut.”

The cuts to next year’s recreation budget means the Rec will be cutting back hours.

“The cut in hours is only 12 hours per week and occurs at times that are least used by our student population,” Daugherty said. “While we know that there will be people unhappy with the changes, we are still serving the largest population we can by cutting the hours that we have.”

The money for the budget comes from student fees, and since there are recent enrollment troubles, there is less money made available to distribute among the board budgets.

In terms of how long the new hours would remain in effect, it is currently unknown.

“I wish I could predict how long this will last, but because this allocation is dependent on enrollment and student fees, I have no way to accurately answer that question,” Daugherty said.

In the original budget proposal, Campus Recreation was asking for $7,000 for maintenance fees, $150,000 for the student payroll, and $54,000 for the graduate assistants.

After Apportionment Board told Campus Recreation much money it would be allocated, the new budget would be cutting the $7,000 allocated to maintenance and $18, 515 from the student payroll, with $131, 485 left for student payroll.

The only item remaining the same on both the original and revised budgets was how much would be given to the graduate assistants.

“We did not cut the graduate assistant budget when we reallocated funds to incorporate the cuts made to our request,” Daugherty said. “This year, Dr. Nadler has been generous enough to pay for one of our gradate assistants in order to avoid having to change our faculty operating hours in the middle of the year.”

Daugherty also said this would be a one-time assistance because of cuts made to the current Campus Recreation budget after the allocated funds were in place and the hours were set.

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].