Campus Center 308 | University at Albany, SUNY | Albany, New York 12222
GSA Officer Reports – October 2, 2015
Treasurer’s Report – Hina Thalho
Budget as of 9/24/15GSA ACCOUNT BALANCES & REPORT SUMMARY
Expected Revenue 2014-15 / $165,000.00
Carry-over from 2013-14 / $124,102.54
Total Expected Revenue / $289,102.54
Total Allocated / $244,364.00
Total Unallocated / $44,738.54
Total Deposits / $124,102.54
Total Paid / $129,63.75
Adjustments: See attached Sheet / $0.00
Actual Account Balance / $111,138.79
Expected Account Balance / $276,138.79
BUDGET SUMMARY
Amount / Amount
Allocated / Paid / Balance
SERVICES
Room Reservations / $1,000.00 / $0.00 / $1,000.00
RGSO Awards / $40,000.00 / $0.00 / $40,000.00
Grant Awards / $45,000.00 / $0.00 / $45,000.00
Contingency Budget (at 5% of projected revenue) / $8,250.00 / $0.00 / $8,250.00
GSA Welcome/ Year End Events / $4,000.00 / $0.00 / $4,000.00
Allocated from Previous Fiscal Year (Note 1) / $15,814.00 / $6332.24 / $9481.76
Food Pantry / $5,000.00 / $0.00 / $5,000.00
OPERATIONS
Contractual Goods and Services
Liability and Theft Insurance / $2,000.00 / $0.00 / $2,000.00
Printer Contract/ Lease / $17,000.00 / $1,138.00 / $15,862.00
Non-Contractual Costs
Paper / $5,000.00 / $0.00 / $5,000.00
Office Supplies/Expenses / $1,000.00 / $750.39 / $249.61
Phone and Fax / $100.00 / $0.00 / $100.00
Water / $1,000.00 / $125.4 / $874.6
Officer Stipends
Stipend-President / $4,500.00 / $0.00 / $4,500.00
Stipend-Vice President / $3,500.00 / $0.00 / $3,500.00
Stipend-Treasurer / $3,500.00 / $0.00 / $3,500.00
Stipend-MCAA Chair / $3,000.00 / $0.00 / $3,000.00
Stipend-Programming Chair / $3,000.00 / $0.00 / $3,000.00
Stipend-Grants Chair / $3,000.00 / $0.00 / $3,000.00
Stipend-Lead Senator / $1,000.00 / $0.00 / $1,000.00
Stipend-Senators / $1,500.00 / $0.00 / $1,500.00
Stipend-University Council Representative / $200.00 / $0.00 / $200.00
Stipend-Assembly Speaker / $200.00 / $0.00 / $200.00
Administrative Support
Office Managers (Note 2) / $20,000.00 / $2,524.45 / $17,475.55
Public Relation Manger / $2,500.00 / $0.00 / $2,500.00
Parliamentarian / $800.00 / $0.00 / $800.00
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
NAGPS / $16,000.00 / $1962.06 / $14,037.94
Strategic Plan Funding- President / $6,000.00 / $131.21 / $5,868.79
Strategic Plan Funding- MCAA Chair / $3,000.00 / $0.00 / $3,000.00
Strategic Plan Funding-Programming / $6,000.00 / $0.00 / $6,000.00
Strategic Plan Funding- Vice President / $1,500.00 / $0.00 / $1,500.00
Investments
Future Technology Purchases (Printer for Uptown) / $20,000.00 / $0.00 / $20,000.00
Note 1.
Allocated from Previous Fiscal Year
Above line is created to show you those expenses that are part of previous budgets but were not presented at that time period.
As you know that our fiscal period is July 1st to June 30th. There are couple of events and operation expenses that occurred before June 30th or during the summer but were paid after July 1st. Almost 70% amount of above line is related with RGSO events and Grants.
About 5.33% amount of above line is associated with old Fiscal period. Those expenses were not paid due to submission of inefficient documentations.
Note 2.
Office Mangers
Office Mangers’ line consists of sum of two things. Total amounts were earned by office manager, $2305.00 and total taxes were paid, $219.45.
President’s Report – Bob Beach
Five Year Master Plan Committee:
I hope to have a report from this committee by the time we meet in October. As of this moment, I have 3 students (including me) on the committee. If you are interested in serving on this important committee, please talk to me after the meeting, or send me an email ()
Orientation and Student Support Services:
I want to echo the remarks below from the Vice President (below) thanking everyone involved in visiting department orientations this term. We reached a number of students and were tuned into several issues that we can address within our organization. The biggest issue seems to be the utter lack of support services for graduate students on campus. The orientation sessions run by the GSA far surpass any existing general orientation procedures on campus. It appears that the university is relying on departments to do this work. I think we can take a multi-pronged approach to improving these services. First, we should put pressure on the graduate school to provide these services. We should also think about improving our own orientation and/or integrating it into any new programs provided by the graduate school. And finally, we should work to improve our communication with new students by creating a webpage, linked to ours, that provides information and resources for new graduate students.
Advocacy RGSO
I’ve received information from a couple of students interested in forming/joining the advocacy RGSO. This effort, part of my strategic plan, is to institutionalize our relationship with local legislators in Albany. We would like to see the GSA become an important presence in New York, and in the SUNY system and need interested students to lead this effort. If you are interested, please contact me ().
NAGPS Events
Based on Assembly instructions given to us in September. The Executive Board has approved the application of Anjola Coker to attend the upcoming Legislative Action Days in Washington. We are still looking for applicants for the national conference. Please send all application materials to me ().
SUNY SA delegation
We are also looking for a small delegation to accompany me to the SUNYSA meeting in November. As an Albany-based research center in the SUNY system, we need to increase our presence and participation in SUNYSA. Students that are interested in promoting the interests of UAlbany graduate students in the SUNY system should contact me ().
Vice President’s Report – Kat Slye
Department Orientations (Part II)
· Since the last Assembly meeting, there were about 5 or 6 more department orientations that e-board members or other GSA representatives attended to inform graduate students about what the GSA does and how they can get involved if they want.
· I want to publicly thank everyone who helped attend these orientations to represent the GSA and helped to ensure that more graduate students know about us, what we do/our goals, and what we can do for them as graduate students. I and Lisa would not have been able to attend all of these orientations on our own; this initiative worked because of everyone who agreed to help!
· I also want to thank the Office Managers who logged all of the information we gathered from students at those orientations and added many students to the GSA listserv!
RGSO Committee Update
· I have structured this committee a little differently from years past. I split the committee in two in order to ensure that the parts of my strategic plan that the Committee will work on will be completed. For the fall, half of the committee will work on developing the NAGPS application and approval process; they will have a draft for the November meeting and will produce a final version for Assembly approval at the December meeting given changes made from feedback. The other half of the committee will work on approving RGSO event requests. I will be working with both groups on both initiatives. In the spring, half will work on RGSO transition to offer groups information about how to transition and what research says about how to do transition, all with the goal of ensuring RGSOs have more smooth officer turnover year to year. The half that worked on the NAGPS process in the fall will then work on approving RGSO event requests.
· If anyone would like to join the RGSO committee and/or work on one of the special projects outlined above (NAGPS or Transition), please e-mail me at .
· For the fall, the NAGPS committee has a standing meeting time of first and third Tuesdays from 4-5pm.
· The RGSO Event Review committee has a standing meeting of second and fourth Tuesdays from 3-4pm.
· Both meet in the GSA Uptown Office 307/8.
RGSO Applications and Recognition
· RGSO President’s received an e-mail letter from me in September explaining the $500 grant, the reimbursement process, as well as committee assignments. Remember: The $500 grant your RGSO was given is to get you started and if you need more money, you need to fill out an event sheet on MyInvolvement and submit it at least 1 month before your event (the earlier the better).
· After processing the RGSO Applications, we have 27 RGSOs this semester. Two groups have reformed after being inactive for a few years, and we have three new RGSOs. This also means that we lost a few groups – meaning they did not apply for recognition this semester – but I know a few are working on rebuilding and might be applying in the Spring. With 27 groups, and even though we lost a few, we have had a net growth of 1 RGSO.
· If your group has not registered with the office of student involvement on myinvolvement, please do so as soon as possible (this is separate from applying for recognition with the GSA). You go to your group’s page on myinvolvement, click the blue register button, and it takes about 5-10 minutes to complete. If you do not have an advisor, you do not have to list one. You can instead write “nobody” in the name section and “” in the e-mail section.
· If your RGSO has not submitted the signatures to have an additional representative because you are larger than 40 people and want to have the second rep, I need that by the October 2nd Assembly meeting.
RGSO Guidelines
· I have submitted a few suggested edits to the RGSO Guidelines that will be discussed at the October Assembly meeting. I have offered these changes in order to make things clearer, more fair, and to make things easier on RGSOs. Here is a summary of my suggested edits as well as my reasoning for making the suggestion:
· Recognition applications are only required in the fall unless you have officer changes; groups can still form in the spring and submit an application at that time if they did not apply in the fall. I suggest this because some groups have said it would be easier to only do it once a year and because we now have a rolling allocation system a second period is unnecessary.
· Set a deadline for RGSO training to be completed; we have had trouble getting everyone trained so a clear deadline is needed to everyone is aware of the requirements and when it needs to be completed by. Having it in the guidelines will also ensure that it is consistent and not at the whim of the GSAVP.
· Added information regarding the requirement that all petty cash be deposited with the GSA; this is a legal issue since RGSOs do not actually exist for legal purposes but are under the GSA. It also ensures your money does not get lost. You will be able to access this money and you can use it for anything you want; it does not have to follow GSA guidelines since it is not GSA money.
· Added information about the requirement that RGSOs need to get 41 signatures to demonstrate they have more than 40 members and are eligible to have a second voting
representative in the GSA Assembly. This has not officially been formalized but it was decided on last year by the RSGS Committee as the mechanism for verifying membership and was part of the application. If groups have other suggestions, I am open to a discussion at the meeting of how groups can demonstrate they have more than 40 members.
· I suggested a requirement that each RGSO give the new Vice President a point of contact to ensure all groups are aware of important information, such as training dates and application deadlines. This person would be responsible for ensuring all group members who need the information are aware of any information communicated by the Vice
· President. I suggest this because over the last few years we have had trouble ensuring groups have important information because we don’t know who the officers are as many do not elect new e-boards until the fall.
Other Updates
· I have ensured all RGSO documents on the website are updated, which includes adding the RGSO Welcome Packet from training.
· I updated the RGSO FAQs and will continue to do more work on this. Please consult this page if you have RGSO related questions.
· I (with the help of Hanna Pageau’s Photoshop skills) am creating an RGSO Event Flowchart so you can see visually all of the steps that are involved in the process to make it easier to follow. This will be available on the GSA website and will include links to all the pertinent information and documents you need for events. If you have a suggestion of any other processes you want to see in this manner, please e-mail me.
Equity and Inclusion Chair’s Report – Amani Edwards
Hello RGSO's! The E&I committee is meeting next week and will begin reviewing events for E&I approval. Please refer to the GSA website for the form for E&I events. Send this form to before Friday October 9th if you want approval. We accept these forms throughout the semester, but highly suggest you send the form two weeks before the scheduled date for your event. Please email me with questions or if you need help with events.