USG EMAILS
2024-2025 Emails
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Good Morning Club Leaders!
The office of Clubs and Orgs is thrilled to announce that we are now accepting line budget applications!
Clubs who have spent at least 75% of their budget for 2 consecutive semesters on PBC (or are currently in their second semester of PBC) are eligible to apply for a USG Line budget which allows for more flexibility with how much a club/org can acquire, and with fewer limitations on what the budget can be used for. To apply, please create a google folder with a completed Budget Application, Budget Presentation, and your clubs' Transition Documents. You can find a checklist and committee rubric here
Please email the application folder to usg_clubsandorgs@stonybrook.edu, you will then be called in to present your budget request in a PBC Meeting, similar to how the presentation was for your PBC meeting.
For any further questions, you can schedule an appointment! Please email us at usg_clubsandorgs@stonybrook.edu!
The deadline to submit your Line Budget Application is April 27th!
Wishing you a happy and healthy spring semester,
Aryan Sharma
The Office of Clubs and Organizations
Undergraduate Student Government
Office Hours | Instagram | Website
Office: 631.632.6464
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Dear Club Leaders,
Spring Budget Weekend (SBW) is just around the corner, and we want to make sure you're fully prepared!This is only eligible for line budget status clubs, including clubs that had a line budget last year but was defunded this year. This is your chance to receive a line budget again!
When & Where?
March 7th 2pm - 7pm; March 8th 10:30am - 6pm; March 9th 10:30am - 5:10pm
Stony Brook Union (exact rooms will be announced at a later date)
Here is the submission form: https://forms.gle/GjcuAQPWAykBTsWCA
Here is the application form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1abkMCbWpVAnNBk-O06CPOoKmUVXUU7Wk/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102171046878797502049&rtpof=true&sd=true
Here are the links to schedule a spot:
Sports: https://calendar.app.google/nGV5PsdkrmxCcz1Q6
Academic: https://calendar.app.google/sbDumpFtYbhjA73x8Cultural: https://calendar.app.google/LPFqjMfiFaTKPhg49Performance/Leisure: https://calendar.app.google/bE4vMyZ6zDeUyxXG7Community Awareness/Activism: https://calendar.app.google/xmYZWVwWZMkd8Str9
Media/Religious: https://calendar.app.google/umXQNkzUGWRBtrpW6
Please refer to this document to check for your club’s club type. Please schedule only one appointment per club! Please be sure to select the correct link for your club type, or your appointment slot may be canceled, unless permission is given by the Treasury office or all appointment slots for your club type have been taken. If all the appointment slots for your respective club type have been taken, only then you may choose a slot from remaining community awareness/activism or media/religious slots.
The Submission Form deadline is on March 5th, 2025 at 11:59pm. This is a hard deadline as the Google Form will close and late submissions via email will only be accepted with a 50% penalty, so please make sure to submit on time to keep your club funded. If your club has scheduled for a slot during SBW but did not submit a submission form on time, your slot will automatically be cancelled unless your club emails us letting us know that your club still wishes to present during SBW with the 50% penalty.
If you fail to submit your Submission Form by March 5th, 2025 and did not schedule for a slot during SBW, you will have a chance to schedule your club for a make-up session on either March 10th (Monday) or March 11th (Tuesday) by emailing usg_treasurer@stonybrook.edu. Again, please note that there will be a 50% penalty to your line budget.
If your club is unavailable during SBW due to a competition/tournament or other extenuating circumstance, your club would have to inform us before March 5th so we can schedule your club on March 10th (Monday) or March 11th (Tuesday) to accommodate your presentation.
Please read the SBW Checklist, Grading and Rubric attached for further information! For financial transparency, applications from clubs with approved specifics, as well as any adjustments (eg. from percentage grades, penalties, budget increase caps), will be made public. With about 30 new line budget clubs expected next academic year, we are striving to ensure that funds are allocated fairly and justifiably to each club within our budget.
We also have training sessions for Spring Budget Weekend in case you have any questions and/or need some advice. Here are the dates, times and zoom links for the training sessions.
February 19th (Wednesday) 12:30pm - 1:30pm
February 24th (Monday) 1pm - 2pm
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out or visit us during our office hours. We’re excited to hear your presentations and see all the great things your clubs have planned!
Regards,Bonnie Wong
USG Treasurer
Undergraduate Student Government
Stony Brook University
Office: 631.632.6382
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Hello Seawolves!
The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate and Executive Council approved proposed changes to the eligibility requirements for the positions of Treasury and Vice President of Student Life. These changes will only go into effect after a Special Election vote from the Student Body (You!). The election will run from Monday, February 3rd to Friday, February 7th on SBEngaged.
The following is an outline of the changes:
Treasurer Changes:
Treasury is responsible for the financial operations that support over 250+ and their event and initiative needs. To ensure candidates for this position are well-prepared for the responsibilities, the following additional requirements have been established:Candidates must have either served as a staff member in the Office of Treasury or completed a minimum of 5 hours of shadowing members of the Office of Treasury. This includes shadowing the Treasurer and Associate Treasurer. Shadowing activities may include observing office hours and gaining hands-on experience in Treasury operations.
Shadowing hours must be approved by both the Treasurer and the USG Administrative Director.
If no candidate meets the requirements, the top three candidates with the highest number of shadowing hours will be considered.
Candidates must attend an informational workshop hosted by the Treasurer. These workshops will cover essential topics, including budget grants, Spring Budget Weekend, invoice requests, line budgets, Probationary Budget Committee budgets, fall revisions, appeals, financial bylaws, Financial Edge NXT, Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs), and Academic Year (AY) budget formulating.
Vice President of Student Life Changes:
The Vice President of Student Life is vital in enhancing the Stony Brook student experience by working closely with clubs, events, and programs that make our campus vibrant and engaging. To ensure candidates are well-prepared for this responsibility, we are introducing additional requirements for the role:
Candidates must have either served as a staff member in the Office of Student Life or completed a minimum of 5 hours shadowing members of the Office of Student Life. This includes shadowing the VP of Student Life, the Executive Assistant to the VP of Student Life, and SAB Programming Coordinators. Shadowing can include observing office hours or participating in SAB event committees.
Shadowing hours must be approved by both the VP of Student Life and the USG Administrative Director.
If no candidate meets the requirements, the top three candidates with the highest number of shadowing hours will be considered.
Candidates must attend an on-site informational workshop hosted by the Vice President of Student Life. These workshops will cover topics like budgeting, contracts, professional working relationships (including Student Engagement & Activities, ASA, Enterprise Risk Management, and SEA), and documentation and record keeping.
These changes aim to ensure future candidates are fully prepared to meet the demands of these roles, fostering a stronger foundation for student life and clubs and organization’s experience.
Please be sure to vote on SB Engaged for these amendments starting Monday February 3rd!
Best regards,
Nistha Boghra, USG President, & The Executive Council
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Dear Clubs and Orgs,
Hope the semester has been treating you all well so far! USG Treasury has a few important updates to make. Please read the following closely.
Travel Financial Bylaw Changes
The proposed amendments to the financial bylaws regarding travel has been passed by Senate. Here is what you need to know:
1) Off Campus Travel: The off campus activity cap for RSOs has been increased from $200 per person to $350 per person on a single off-campus activity. Exceptions shall be made by the discretion of the USG Treasurer.
2) PBC Travel Prohibition Amendment: PBC funds shall not be used to fund travel. This includes but not limited to hotel, transportation, and associated registration.
3) Travel Grant: Requests beyond $3,500 total will subject to Senate approval following approval from BGC. There is a hard cap of $350 per person and $10,000 total.
Weekend/Evening Event Enhancement (WEEE) Grant
This is a new grant sponsored by SEA! To apply for this grant, please fill out the grant application and send it to usg_treasurer@stonybrook.edu. All clubs registered with SEA can apply!
To highlight some important points:
- RSOs will not be eligible to receive more than three WEEE grants per academic year and limited to two WEEE grants in a single semester. Exceptions to the semester maximum may be made at the discretion of the USG Treasurer and SEA.
- Clubs/organizations may receive up to a maximum of $4,500 for an Evening/Weekend Event Enhancement Grant per application.
- The event must begin on or after 6pm on a weekday or on a weekend (Friday 6pm - Sunday 11:59pm) to be eligible.
- This grant cannot be used for any fundraisers. (This includes ticketed events!)
- SEA final approval is needed for all decisions and will be present for the review and discussion regarding applications for this grant.
Agency Accounts
If your club has an agency account (check here), please submit the FY 24-25 Signatories Form. Please complete and return it as soon as possible to ensure your USG Agency Account remains active. Please ensure the signatories listed are updated and accurate. Then, please return the completed form via email to usg_agencyaccounts@stonybrook.edu.
Bootcamp and Financial NXT onboarding - Line Budget and PBC clubs only!
Bootcamp Completion is REQUIRED for all e-board members (President, Vice President, Treasurer & Secretary) before September 30th (already past due!) or your club budget will be temporarily frozen and your club won't be able to request funding.
If you have completed the bootcamp and signatory from before September 30th, you should either have received an invitation from Financial NXT (new club leaders) or have full access to Financial NXT (returning club leaders). Access to the expenses tab can only be allowed after you have accepted the invitation. We will be checking occasionally to allow access to the expenses tab, but if needed immediately, please email us.
Financial NXT notificationsIf you haven't already, you can turn on notifications for Financial NXT under "Edit Settings" in the Expense tab to be notified about invoice requests rejections and approvals.
Line Budget PenaltiesStarting from October 15th, we will start carrying out penalties according to the Financial Bylaws. Please read through and be aware of all the penalties. This includes but not limited to late invoice requests, reimbursements, chase one card violations, no-show/cancellation fees, fall semester underspending.
Fall Semester Underspending: The end of the semester is on December 19th. On December 20th, line budget status RSOs who did not meet the required spending of 20% of the club budget by the end of the fall semester, the unspent remainder of that 20% will be penalized and the funds will be reallocated by USG. Only clubs with exceptional cases will be exempted from this penalty. Clubs must send us an email before December 10th to request an exemption.
Other Penalties: Other club budget percentage deduction penalties that were warranted and informed to the club by USG Treasury will also be taken out of the club budget and be reallocated by USG by the end of the fall semester.
New USG Director of Administration and Operations - Yessenia Flores-Hart
We are pleased to welcome Yessenia to the USG team! If you come to the USG office, make sure to stop by and hi to her :D
For any questions regarding contracts, please reach out to both USG president nistha.bohgra@stonybrook.edu and yessenia.flores@stonybrook.edu.
PEX card/Travel Payment issues Emergency Contact after office hours
If there are any emergencies (and emergencies only!) regarding PEX card payments or travel payments after office hours, please reach out to the USG Treasurer bonnie.wong@stonybrook.edu or Associate Treasurer isha.sachdeva@stonybrook.edu via email, G-chat or G-chat call.Enterprise (car rental)
DJ Harloff is no longer with Enterprise. Please contact Robert Terano at Robert.Terano@em.com for any inquires. Also, if your club is using Centereach location (which is 95% of the time), please choose the vendor ERAC on Financial NXT.
Club Social
USG Clubs and Orgs is hosting Club Social on Thursday, October 10th 7pm to 9pm. USG Treasury will be tabling there as well if you wish to talk to us or ask us any questions.
Thank you for getting through such a long email. I understand this is a lot of information at once. As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to usg_treasurer@stonybrook.edu or visit us during office hours.
Regards,
Bonnie Wong
USG Treasurer
Undergraduate Student Government
Stony Brook University
Office: 631.632.6382
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Dear Club Leaders,
I hope this message finds you well and the semester is going well so far. There is a lot of important information so please read it carefully.
1) We would like to inform you of the key dates pertaining to the Spring 2025 budget process:Line Budget Decisions Released: April 6, 2025
Deadline to request for appeal via email: April 12, 2025
Appeal Review Presentations: April 14 - April 21, 2025
PBC to Line Submission Deadline: April 27, 2025
PBC to Line Approval Presentations: April 28 - May 1, 2025
Final Academic Year Budget Approval: May 8, 2025
2) Financial Transparency
To improve financial transparency, we will be releasing all club funding applications on our website. This will include details on how each club allocated their budget and the reasoning behind USG’s budget approval decisions. This will also include our internal budgets like EC line and Senate line. Since we are doing this for the first time, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.
3) Summer Budget Applications
This is the summer budget application. If your club needs any funding for your summer events and travel, please make a copy of this application, fill it out and send it to usg_treasurer@stonybrook.edu by April 25th, 2025 (Friday) at 11:59pm.
4) Forfeiting line/PBC budgets
Clubs that expect to not finish their line budget are recommended to forfeit their unused budget. For the purposes of calculating total spending, forfeited budgets shall be counted as having spent 50% of the forfeited amount and will be put into the grant pool to support other clubs.
Please note that clubs must spend more than 80% of your line budget, or it might affect your approved budget for the next academic year. So if your club is aiming to spend less than 80% of your line budget, I would highly recommend forfeiting some of your line budget. Please send us an email with the amount your club wishes to forfeit by March 4th (this Friday).
5) Invoice Request Deadline
The last date to submit invoice requests on NXT is on April 27th, 2025 (Sunday) at 11:59pm. Please be sure to put in all the invoice requests you need for upcoming events, any reimbursements that might be pending, and if there are any invoice requests that were rejected that still needs to be submitted. Any invoice requests submitted late may be rejected as the accounting office needs to close books by the end of the academic year, so please do submit them before the deadline.
6) Invoice Requests Approval Rule
If you have any travel or online orders, please use the travel and online orders approval rules for your respective club types. This would help split the invoice requests for the accounting office and be able to approve them faster.
7) WEEE Grant Updates
We currently have $17k left in our WEEE grant pool and $20k worth of applications to be reviewed today and next Monday. We are still accepting applications, but please keep in mind that if your club submits your application after this email, there could be a possibility that we will not have any remaining funds left.
Thank you so much and wishing you a great week ahead! Please let us know if there is anything we can help with. :)
Regards,Bonnie Wong
USG Treasurer
Undergraduate Student Government
Stony Brook University
Office: 631.632.6382
2023-2024 Emails
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Hello Clubs and Organizations!
This year, members of USG have been working hard to make many much-needed changes to USG’s Financial Bylaws. These new financial bylaws will be reviewed and discussed by the USG Senate on Thursday, April 11th (8:30 - 11 PM) and begin to be voted on starting Thursday, April 18th (8:30 - 11 PM).
Because these changes have big impacts for clubs, we want to make sure that clubs are well informed of these changes and have additional time to discuss them with USG’s leadership. Therefore, we are setting up virtual office hours to discuss the bylaws changes with any club leaders who are interested. They will be on:
Thursday, April 11th, 3-4 PM
Tuesday, April 16th, 3-4 PM
Thursday April 18th, 3-4 PM
All office hours can be joined from this zoom link. If you cannot attend these and would like to ask questions virtually or set up an alternate meeting please reach out to USG_Treasurer@stonybrook.edu or drop by treasury office hours.
The current financial bylaws can be found here. The new, proposed financial bylaws can be found here. Please note that these bylaws are still in a draft form and are subject to review, potential modification, and approval by the USG Senate.
A summary of some of the major changes can be found below, but many other minor changes, reorganization, and wording updates have been made throughout the document.
New section and wording for Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs), Spring Budget Weekend (SBW), and Line Budget Penalties section.
Fundraisers can now be requested through an Event grant. Asset grants are now also open to all Undergraduate clubs registered with SEA.
Clarifying the requirement of a club’s openness and exceptions to said requirement. Current USG funded clubs that do not meet the requirements will NOT require re-approval to remain on line budget unless brought up to the senate to discuss.
Added PBC Bylaws to Financial Bylaws. PBC and Line budget clubs now have the same expense regulations and budget caps for things such as food and apparel.
New PBC/Line budget status sections which clarify eligibility requirements and expectations of a club, and also outlines the procedures for receiving or losing said status.
Possibility of removing the 50% food cap (still under heavy debate).
All apparel will now be considered as gifts. The new cap for gifts will be $1,000 or 10% of the club’s budget (whichever is higher), changing from $500 or 1%.
New cap for Off-campus travel events where clubs cannot spend more than $200 per person per event from their line budget. Can be increased to $400 with BGC approval and $550 with BGC and Senate approval through the travel grant.
Possibility of changing the individual gift cap to $40 (from $30).
Removing the Admin manager approval stage on Financial Edge NXT for general invoice requests to make the processing timeline shorter, potentially reducing the deadline to 2 weeks. Admin director approval stage is still required for contract payments.
All of these changes are intended to clarify USG’s financial processes, expedite funding procedures, and ensure USGs funds are used equitably. The feedback from our funded organizations is going to be crucial to finalizing these changes. We look forward to hearing from you!
Best,
Amitesh Reddy Akiti, USG Treasurer
Devin Lobosco, USG President
Undergraduate Student Government
Stony Brook University
Office: 631.632.6382
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Hey Club Leaders!
This is a reminder that USG’s proposed changes to the financial bylaws (found here), will be voted on at our Senate Meeting this Thursday, 5/2, in SAC 302. The meeting starts at 7 PM, but we'll start discussing the bylaws around 8 PM. The bylaws will not be presented as it was already done in the previous meetings, but there will be time allotted for questions, discussion and further changes if needed. These changes have major impacts on how USG funding works, so we highly encourage clubs to review the draft bylaws and come to the meeting if you have any concerns!
A summary of some of the major updates can be found below, but many other minor changes, reorganization, and wording updates have been made throughout the document.
Clubs who spend less than 95% of their line budget shall only be eligible for a maximum budget of 5% more than what they spent in the previous year.
Only two travel grants available per club per year. Event grants may now be up to a maximum of $4,500 per event. Removed semesterly cap on all grants (only annual maximum). Any individual asset being requested in an asset grant above $4,500 needs to be approved by the senate.
All USG funded events must now be equally accessible to all undergraduate students.
Only required gratuities may be paid for using USG funds
No show and cancellation fees may be paid for using USG funds, but there may be an associated penalty for doing so.
The USG ticket office no longer has a 5% fee on ticket revenue.
New section and wording for Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs), Spring Budget Weekend (SBW), and Line Budget Penalties section.
Fundraisers can now be requested through an Event grant. Asset grants are now also open to all Undergraduate clubs registered with SEA.
Clarifying the requirement of a club’s openness and exceptions to said requirement. Current USG funded clubs that do not meet the requirements will NOT require re-approval to remain on line budget unless brought up to the senate to discuss.
Added PBC Bylaws to Financial Bylaws. PBC and Line budget clubs now have the same expense regulations and budget caps for things such as food and apparel.
New PBC/Line budget status sections which clarify eligibility requirements and expectations of a club, and also outlines the procedures for receiving or losing said status.
Cap on food spending changed to 50% of line budget or $1,000, whichever amount is higher (used to be just 50%).
All apparel will now be considered as gifts. The new cap for gifts will be $1,000 or 10% of the club’s budget (whichever is lower), changing from $500 or 1%.
New cap for Off-campus travel events where clubs cannot spend more than $200 per person per event from their line budget. Can be increased to $400 with BGC approval and $550 with BGC and Senate approval through the travel grant.
Possibility of changing the individual gift cap to $50 (from $30).
Removing the Admin manager approval stage on Financial Edge NXT for general invoice requests to make the processing timeline shorter, potentially reducing the deadline to 2 weeks. Admin director approval stage is still required for contract payments.
Immediately after the bylaws, the draft USG budget for next year will be proposed. We highly encourage club leaders to attend to observe the budget deliberations and provide input to our senate!
Best,
Devin Lobosco, USG President
Amitesh Reddy Akiti, USG Treasurer
Undergraduate Student Government
Stony Brook University
Office: 631.632.6382