The Nevada Sagebrush

Student Body President Eli Reilly’s budget uses cuts to money set aside for student government travel to pay for the first “stimulus package” in the student government’s history.

The package, a $200,000 commitment split between the next two years which will be matched by money from the Office of Financial Aid, will create 50 new student jobs on campus if it is approved by the Associated Students of the University of Nevada Senate.

“ASUN’s never done anything like this before,” Reilly said. “We wanted to help students who may be having a hard time, and what better way to do that then give them a job?”

Under the program, called the Undergraduate Student Employment Stimulus Package (USESP), the Office of the Provost will decide which departments on campus get the student jobs. If chosen, the departments will pay 25 percent of the student’s salary while the stimulus program pays the other 75 percent, according to a draft of the agreement that would create USESP. The program is not need-based.

Providing jobs to people would better benefit students than a lot of the things ASUN does,” Juan Ramirez, a 19-year-old computer science major, said. “I do think you need a balance of things like this and recreational things, though.”

Senate Speaker Gracie Geremia said the program would help students find jobs on campus that might not exist if budget cuts are too high.

“I think (USESP) is definitely something ASUN should take a look at,” she said. “It’s a good thing to discuss.”

ASUN will receive an increase in its overall budget due to a rise in the student fee that pays for it. Despite the increase, the size of USESP coupled with the cost of continuing Campus Escort services after that program was cut from the Office of Student Services forced Reilly to decide on cuts to other programs to free up money.

The majority of the cuts are to travel funds for different departments under Reilly’s budget.

“Most of those we saw as nonessential to the core missions of the programs,” Reilly said. “There were a few exceptions, but for the most part we thought it was extra.”

The exceptions included the travel fund for the programming board, which Reilly said was essential to the job they do and was not reduced.

“Every year the programming board attends a regional conference that teaches them how to spend the money we give them, without it they wouldn’t do as good a job as they do,” Reilly said.

Earlier in the budgeting process, Reilly looked at the possibility of cutting money to Insight Magazine, forcing the publication online-only. The final budget, however, paid for Insight at slightly less than $4,000 less than last year. Appendices to the executive budget listed the cuts to many of the travel funds as how Insight’s budget was restored.

Reilly said the original plans to reduce Insight’s budget were changed when Reilly and other members of his cabinet found an inaccuracy in the executive branch’s wages that freed up money for the magazine.

“(Planning the budget) is a zero-sum game and it took a lot of work to get it right,” Reilly said.

Jay Balagna can be reached at jbalagna@nevadasagebrush.com.

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