DASB Senate prepare for upcoming budget discussions

The DASB Senate discusses the decline in student enrollment along with its potential implications on the budget and prepares new senators understand how the budget works on Jan. 17.

During the first meeting of the quarter, senators underwent a budget training to give new senators experience on how the De Anza budget has been processed in previous years.

The main focus for the Finance committee is taking into consideration the effects the enrollment decline will have on funds available to programs and clubs on campus.

Funds 41 and 46 are the main contributors to programs such as college life, food, general necessities for clubs, teachers and students alike.

The senate distributes the funds after evaluating requests from the various programs, but Fund 41 is especially affected because it gets its money from student registration.

“President Murphy gave us some numbers and to sum it up, over 100 courses had to be cancelled this quarter, a lot of them very last minute, and that affects a lot of students,” said De Anza Student Trustee, Elias Kamal, 20, political science major.

According to the Finance committee, the projected budget is going to be kept the same as last year since a decrease in enrollment has been a trend for the past few years.

February will be a big month for discussions from programs, clubs and the budget decisions the senate makes.

“People will be coming in to present to us and it’s our job as senators and people who represent our community, to listen to them,” said Chair of Finance, Amanda Le.