The pot definitely got bigger.

With nearly $500,000 worth of money up for grabs, the Student Government Association will begin giving out money tonight at their meeting in the Saint Louis Room.

After weeks of funding hearings and discussions, the SGA Finance Committee has recommended allocating $492,628.12 to 39 chartered student organizations.

This amount more than doubles the last year’s amount of $221, 609.84. The increase was a result of a $11 per semester increase in the student activity fee, a referendum passed during the February election.

“The fee increase was warranted,” said Dane Salazar, SGA financial vice president. “Groups will start to get more money for what they need, allowing for growth, particularly among smaller groups.”

During the process this year, similar to last year, the SGA Finance Committee met with each group requesting funding. Those groups had to present a budget proposal, including their current budget and their requested allotment with a detailed description of what they were planning. After the hearings, the committee went through each budget and cut all required cuts: alcohol, meals while traveling, banking charges and hotel room expenses that did not include four students of the same gender to a room.

Once those cuts were made, other criteria were looked at for each group, including the group’s attendance at House of Governors’ meetings, the condition of financial records, the level of organizational activity, the relevance of the request to the mission or purpose of the group and the group’s attempt at fundraising beyond allocated funds.

The finance committee did not know how much money was to be totally allocated until after all cuts were made. Only Salazar knew the figure. “We cut everyone very harshly,” he said. “We cut to a subsistence level, cutting everything they could do without having.

“We were very frugal and worked with the same frame of mind that we were working with when we had a limited budget,” Salazar explained.

After making the cuts, $76,726.12 remained to be funded. The committee decided to give everyone an increase of as much as 17 percent of their allocated funds. For example, groups receiving only an eight percent cut from their request, only received that eight percent. No group was allocated more than they requested.

This method was used to keep the process fair, as all groups were originally cut on an equal basis. According to Salazar, to go back an “un-cut” previous cuts for some groups would end up being unfair to groups considered last in the process.

He warned that had they un-cut too much, then there would be an across-the-board percentage cut to all groups, something that occurred last year at a rate of more than 26 percent.

“The last step in the process is always going to be either an across-the-board increase or decrease,” Salazar said.

In addition to a larger general allocation, spot funding was also doubled from $4,000 per semester to $8,000 per semester. Salazar said that this should help fund new groups who get chartered after annual funding, such as SLU Crew Team.

KSLU General Manager and Undergraduate Senator Brian Suda said, “It’s not SGA’s job to be a bank. If there’s money in the pot, who holds onto it?” He also said that the transition year, with an influx of money, always is the worst because no one knows what to do with all the money.

Parks Senator Matt Love expressed concern that many groups did not request funding with the knowledge of the new increase in the total funds available.

The Senate must approve the recommendations of the Finance Committee tonight at their meeting in the Saint Louis Room, Busch Memorial Center, at 5 p.m. Next week, chartered student organizations can apply for additional money during the appeals process.