Homecoming price tag grows

The cost of this year’s Homecoming events will increase to approximately $71,500.

That figure is up from the $62,377 spent in 2009, according to Susan Allen, chief budget officer and director of Payroll Services. That amounts to an increase of $9,123.

However, with the school and students experiencing financial burdens, the question arises as to where the money is coming from and how it is being used.

Homecoming is fully funded out of the $76 student activity fee students pay each semester. Each year the Student Government Association allocates funds for the different organizations or events that get funding from the fee.

“Each year we look at what percentage of the budget we give the different organizations,” SGA President Zach Mullins said. “Recently, we’ve moved toward standardizing some formulas for SGA, CAB, The GIVE Center and Campus Life, we had flirted with doing it for Homecoming, but we’ve never really done it.”

One concern among students, such as sophomore education major Olivia Ollinger, is if the increased price tag is going to cut money from other areas of the budget.

“It seems frivolous and unnecessary,” Ollinger said. “There are plenty of other organizations on campus that could use the funding to enhance our education.”

This school year seven percent of the budget was allotted for Homecoming, up one percent from the previous year.

“A lot of the other organizations maintain their standard funding,” Mullins said. “Homecoming is not really taking away from anything, we look at it more as adding more to the campus as a whole.”

Director of Campus Life Tom Miles sees the weekend not as a financial burden, but as an asset to the GCSU community.

“We’re trying to create that sense of spirit, what we will call on this campus ethos, because it’s not just about the activities it’s about what the activities convey.”

One of the reasons SGA and the Homecoming Committee felt the budget needed to be larger this year was due to student demand for a Thursday night concert.

“We get more and more demands. Based on last year’s music selection, (students) wanted bigger name bands,” Mullins said. “So naturally, it’s going to take a little bigger budget to do that.”

The concert takes up about 75 percent of the total Homecoming budget. Miles and the 38-member Homecoming Committee have been working to organize the weekend.

“It’s what our students say they wanted,” Miles said. “They want the concert, they want the basketball game, they want the Mr. and Mrs., so that’s what we do.”

When looking for musical acts to perform, there was about $50,000 that the school was looking to budget for the bands.

“We are trying to use the student fees the best we can and get what students want in terms of the kind of talent we have and also put on a good quality program for them,” Mullins said.

One thing done to try and offset the financial burden is that the concert is now free for all GCSU students.

“We’re really excited we can make the concert free this year,” Mullins said. “It’s the lowest price for the general public, as well, so I think it’s really important that students come out this year, because it’s free.”

In addition, the concert will be held in the Centennial Center and there will be tailgating beforehand. Holding the concert in the Centennial Center should also help keep the cost lower.

“It will probably, in the end, cost us a little bit less,” Miles said. “I think we will see an increase in terms of students and others that will come back to the institution to see the concert because they know they won’t be standing in 30-degree weather.”

Junior art major Elizabeth Boom was glad to hear the concert will be free.

“We paid for Homecoming with our student fees, we should get in the concert free and we should at least get a free T-shirt too,” she said.

Posted by Katelyn Hebert on Feb 5 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry