The EIU Student Senate was presented with two budget proposals at its meeting on Wednesday.

The first budget presented was from Director of Career Services Bobbi Kingery. The budget called for $25,000 of the student activity fee to be allocated to career services to help fund its expenses during the 2026-2027 academic year.

According to Kingery, career services is designed to help current students and alums with job finding.

In addition to student activity fee money that is allocated to career services, the department also gets money from appropriated funds to cover full-time staff, $5,000 from the VPSA for operational costs and $8,000-$16,000 from job fairs, Kingery said.

EIU alternates hosting the education job fair with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The revenue is split so that the host gets 70%, and the non-host gets 30%.

The total staff for career services includes Kingery, employee relations specialist John Marr who is retiring in June 2026, a graduate assistant, five student employees and two career peers.

The expenses of career services total $41,731.01, said Kingery.

Career services utilizes software like Handshake, Focus 2 and “What can I do with a major in?” Kingery said the various softwares cost $9,259.

Kingery said the cost of student workers is $24,750.

“Most of my money goes to my student employees,” Kingery said. “In a way, we’re giving back to the students by helping them make money while they’re on campus.”

The copier cost is $6,747.01, and membership to professional associations is $975, said Kingery.

Kingery said there are fees that will fluctuate, like office supplies, catering, marketing and employer parking for the job fair.

SGA Vice President of Academic Affairs Emilee Boyd spoke highly of career services.

“Their services are awesome,” she said. “I encourage you all to go out there and talk to your friends and your classmates about using Bobbi’s services because they are incredibly helpful.”

The Senate also heard a budget presentation from the fraternity and sorority life office, who requested $52,545 of student activity fee allocations to help fund its expenses during the 2026-2027 academic year.

According to FSL Director Nathan Wehr, there are 23 chapters at Eastern with 430 members total.

Wehr said a metric by Independent Sector estimated the impact of Greek organization members on any local community to be about $34.79 per volunteer hour.

Greek organizations at EIU provided around 5,219 volunteer hours in 2025. If valued at $34.79 per hour, that would be about $181,569.01 of labor.

Greek organizations at EIU also raised $35,473.16 for philanthropy in 2025, said Wehr.

Office supplies and printing cost the office $3,000.

$11,000 is allocated for professional development, which includes payment for attending the Association of Fraternal Leadership and Values conference.

$1,500 is allocated for the FSL Excellence Awards ceremony.

FSL pays dues and subscriptions that total around $5,275.

$5,000 is allocated for the Black Student Union. $2,000 is dedicated to the Interfraternity Council and the EIU Pan-Hellenic Council each. The National Pan-Hellenic Council and the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations get $4,000 each.

For FSL programming and recruitment events, there is $9,950 allocated.

For employees, there are two graduate assistants whose parking and supplemental funds are $3,875. One student worker has a total salary of $5,000.

Both budgets were tabled to be voted on at the next SGA meeting.

Jason Coulombe can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].