The University of Rhode Island’s Student Senate budget was increased from $1.3 million to $1.4 million for the 2025-2026 academic year, according to Nicholas Cronan, the student senate’s director of treasury.
“It sounds like a big increase, but it’s not as big as we hoped,” Cronan said. “Especially because costs all across the board have gone up.”
The added $100,000 was mostly allocated to student senate administrative fees and salary increases for staff members, and some clubs received a significant increase in funding compared to the previous year, according to Cronan.
“Going forward it would be nice to see a continuous increase,” Sanah Feroz, vice president of the student senate, said. “Which I know is challenging in these circumstances with budget cuts happening to other departments and other groups on campus.”
The African Student Organization received $20,000 compared to last year’s $15,000. Powerful Independent Notoriously Knowledgeable Women received $20,000 as well, a $7,000 dollar increase from last year’s $13,000.
Almost all organizations received the same amount or more funding than what was given in the 2024-2025 budget.
“We are proud of what we’ve come up with,” Cronan said. “A lot of hard work went into this. We met with nearly 50 clubs to discuss their individual needs, expenses and any situations that they have so we could accommodate them in the fairest way possible.”
Many of the organizations that received extra funding were multicultural organizations, such as the Black Student Union, the Muslim Student Association and South Asian Student Association. Out of 16 multicultural organizations, 10 received $1,000 or more in extra funding compared to last year’s budget.
“I’d say it wasn’t intentional but it worked out in favor of the multicultural organizations,” Cronan said. “I would say that a lot of [the reasons were] judgement based on how many events these clubs put on and how much they contribute to the overall culture of the campus.”
Some organizations, such as the Young Democratic Socialists of America, did not receive funding due to their failure to submit re-recognition forms to the student senate before the deadline.
“We’re gonna look back into [funding YDSA] because they did end up filling out the form eventually,” Cronan said. “We use our contingency fund for emergency events like this so it will not affect any of the funding for other organizations.”
The contingency fund is reserved for unforeseen costs that may arise during the year. The general contingency fund budget is $10,000 with additional program contingency funds set at $15,000.
Even with the funding increases that were given, many clubs and organizations asked for significantly more funding than they did last year, according to Cronan.
“We don’t wanna give one club too much,” Cronan said. “It’s kind of a pattern every year that clubs will ask for more than they actually need. If we keep giving [the same club] a lot every year, next year we might have to make cuts.”
The budget went through at least 10 rounds of review between members of the treasury and student senate itself, according to Cronan.
“Everyone understands that we cannot accommodate every request,” Cronan said. “But with whatever money we had extra we tried to give it to the organizations we believed were truly contributing to the overall campus.”
