Terror on the 8th Floor and other programs for the University Board have been canceled or downsized because of budget cuts connected with low enrollment.

The University Board received budget cuts within its program because not as much revenue is coming from student activity fees this year than in previous years.

The fee per semester is $102.03 for full-time students and $8.50 for part-time students.

Daniel Nadler, the vice president for student affairs, said enrollment is down, so there are fewer students to pay for the activity fee.

The revenue is spread out between four different areas: Apportionment Board, Student Recreation, University Board and Student Government.

Danny Turano, the chairman of the UB, said because of the decrease in funds, they had to reduce certain programs.

“We had to reduce certain programs, stuff or events that we wanted to put on for the students on a larger scale, we kind of had to bring it back a little bit because of the budget cuts,” Turano said.

Turano, a senior sociology major, said they have had to really plan all the events so they do not spend all their money.

“We want to put on big events, but we can’t put all our money into one event when we have an entire year to fill with events,” Turano said.

They have decreased the number of events, giveaways and decorations. He said they also try to do more series, where it is an all-inclusive fee.

The UB received about $216,000, which is split up into different budgets for the different areas of entertainment.

Terror on the 8th Floor is funded out of the UB Special Events budget, which received a total of $32,320 at the beginning of the year, which is about 15 percent of the UB budget.

“That is one of special events’ larger scale events,” Turano said. “I would even relate it cost-wise to an Up All Night or a Quakin’ (in the Quad), and unfortunately, to make sure Special Events has enough money throughout the year, we had to make the executive decision to kind of take back and cancel the event.”

The UB usually contributed about $3,000 to $5,000 for Terror on the 8th Floor.

“Really, the most amount of money goes to costumes and decorations and things that go into making a haunted house a haunted house,” Turano said.

Turano said when he started last year, they started with the $230,000 to $240,000 and had to make a 6 percent budget cut to make up for the lack of funding from the student activity fee revenue.

“Just because our fees are down doesn’t mean things stop costing money and things stop raising in price,” Turano said.

Turano said they cannot do much to get more money, but present a budget and plan for the use of the money to the Apportionment Board.

Nadler said he gives an estimate to the board on what they can give to the different organizations.

“Every year, I try to look into a crystal ball and try to forecast how much money we will have available for the following year,” Nadler said.

He said the reason each organization had to hold 6 percent was because the estimate was not accurate.

Nadler said all together $30,000 was held between the four areas.

Nadler said the budgets are presented by the different organizations to the board and they will decide if the purposed budgets are realistic.

According to the article “AB approves new budget suggestions” in the March 22 edition of The Daily Eastern News, the UB requested $216,489.

Nadler said after the presentation, the Apportionment Board will send a recommendation to the Student Senate, who will draft a resolution about each budget that goes to Nadler.

Nadler said in the eight years he has been at Eastern, he has almost always approved the recommendation.

The university is working on increasing the amount of revenue from the fees.

“There are two ways to get more revenue — have more people paying or increase the activity fee amount,” Nadler said. “In the past year, I haven’t allowed any new increases to come forward.”

Turano said they are trying to be creative with their programing.

“We were one of the biggest who had to give back with money wise,” Turano said. “But we don’t try to make that known to our students, we just try to put on those quality events, even if there isn’t a lot of money behind it.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.