This year’s Student Fee Board met for the first time Friday morning, electing UPUA President Katie Jordan to serve as chair and discussing a timeline for approving the 2018-2019 Student Fee.

“This year what we’re trying to do is have all our hearings in a timeline from October to January so that we can have our fee approved by March,” Jordan said.

Rather than approving requests on a rolling basis, the Board will hear all proposals before actually voting on any of them, saving discussion and approval for January through March.

The Board also discussed its ever-changing relationship with the University Park Allocations Committee, as the Student Programming Association (SPA) and Homecoming will now requests funds from the Student Fee Board rather than through UPAC. However, UPAC will still fund Movin’ On as one of the “big three” annual allocations. To differentiate, it’s worth noting SPA and Homecoming activities would continue through the Office of Student Activities even if students decided not to be involved in the respective organizations.

Another initiative the Board is working on is a way to alleviate burden on students who may have to front funds from their personal accounts for programming — especially things like travel — even after UPAC approves funding for the activity.

The Board will create a subcommittee of three to four members to hear requests for funding in these situations. After some procedural measures through the university, those approved would then be able to use a credit card to alleviate this personal financial stress as long as a purchase order can be provided from the organization to show the money is in its ASA account.

The Board will reconvene at 8 a.m. Friday, September 15 in 102 HUB; no allocation request has been scheduled for the meeting at this time.