The Student Senate heard about cutting allocations to the Student Recreation Center, student government and the University Board at its meeting Wednesday.

Derek Pierce, student vice president for student affairs, said the reason for these cuts was because overall allocations asked for amounted to nearly $485,000 and the amount of money available was only $420,000. “It’s not specific cuts, but dollar-amount cuts,” Pierce said.

The University Board had around $38,000 in cuts, the Student Recreation Center was cut by $24,000 and the student government had $3,500 in cuts.

The apportionment board did not receive any cuts because the only thing that can be cut from that budget is about $35 in printing, Pierce said.

Pierce said an Internal Governing Policy to make the apportionment board completely made up of students was approved.

“So, it will no longer be faculty members voting on how we spend our student fees,” he said.

Also at the meeting, EIU-UPI president Jonathan Blitz gave a presentation on the budget crisis to the Student Senate.

Pierce said Blitz educated the group on higher education funding in Illinois and the lack thereof for the past 10 or 15 years.

Pierce said the main goal of the presentation was to stress to the student senate the importance of students attending the EIU-UPI’s lobby day on Wednesday, April 27.

“They’re looking to get a lot of student involvement from students all across campus to hopefully go and lobby on the students’ behalf,” Pierce said. “The more higher education gets, the more pay we have, the more we can return to the economy.”

The faculty union will be paying for buses to drive students up to Springfield to lobby.

Pierce said all students would need to do is sign up online when the link becomes active.

“It was nice hearing that higher education funding message, because we are still trying to organize Student Action Team, a lobbying force for here on campus,” Pierce said.

Will Outzen, chair of the external relations committee, said his committee is planning to have the city council hold a meeting on campus instead of in City Hall and have the mayor come for an informal question and answer session with the students.

Outzen said he wants to model this forum after the one between students and Eastern President David Glassman earlier this week.

“So, hopefully there will be more pizza there and students will come,” Outzen said.

Chrissy Miller can be reached at 581-2812 or clmiller9@eiu.edu.