The EMU Board of Directors Budget Committee presented a budget of $3,245,160 to its own board and saw the proposal pass unanimously at the relatively uneventful meeting Wednesday night.
The budget committee spent almost the entire month of January in meticulous budget meetings with budget managers from departments such as The Break and EMU Food Services, trying to trim money in every possible area to allow new growth for programs such as UO Cultural Forum.
In order to eke out the $212,300 increase, the budget committee trimmed money from individual accounts, such as $2,000 from Global Marketing, $1,350 from Waste Disposal and $2,500 from money set aside for work-study hires.
Most of the money will fund EMU building reserves and current service level increases — the bare minimum needed to allow a department to serve students just as well as it did in the previous year. The remaining money has been set aside to allow the Cultural Forum’s office manager to work a three-quarters time job, year round, instead of the current half-time position that is funded nine months out of the year.
The Board, which directs the course for the 200,000-square-foot EMU, must take its budget, which represents a 7 percent increase for 2003-04, and present it to Student Senate on Feb. 19 before the amount becomes an official figure.

— Brook Reinhard