Four budget requests were up for discussion and approval for the 2010 fiscal year at Thursday night’s Apportionment Board meeting.

The budgets up include the AB, the Student Recreation Center, the Student Government and the University Board.

Within the last two weeks each board has presented their budget requests to the AB and last night each was given their allocations for the fiscal year of 2010.

The members of the AB found little reason to cut the AB request, seeing most of its fund is projected towards payroll.

The members of the board also reached the same conclusion about the Rec Center budget because it was the only board with a decrease in its budget request.

Both, the AB and the Rec Center budgets were approved as requested, with the AB receiving $24,305 and the Rec Center allocated $226,190 of the $540,000 being divided.

After low activity from the members of the AB, Rec Center administrator Mike Mulvaney proposed a practical way to distribute the remaining funds.

By dividing the 2009 fiscal year budget allocated to the UB by the 2009 fiscal year budget allocated to the Student Government, the members calculated an 18 percent difference.

They then distributed the remaining funds of $289,505 left over from this year’s fund between the UB and the Student Government accordingly.

The UB was allocated $216,800 less than they have originally requested, receiving $243,413.

While both the UB and the Student Government received cuts in their request, UB Vice Chair Sydney Stanhope was expecting this result.

“Although we did get cut substantially, we anticipated it a little bit, and I really do think we got a fair deal out of all of it,” Stanhope said.

The Student Government received $46,092, this is $4,282 less than its request.

Every approval passed unanimously, with little discussion between the members.

“This year almost everyone here is new except for maybe one or two members, and I wish there would have been more discussion, because, basically, half a million dollars is a lot of money to hand out to just four groups,” said AB member Kyle Collom.

Kayleigh Zyskowski can be reached at 581-7942 or at kzyskowski@eiu.edu.